FAIRY TALES

The following stories are taken from books in my collection of fairy books. Click on the links below! Enjoy :)

The Field of Boliauns
This is the story of a very naughty leprachaun who gives poor Tom Fitzpatrick a very hard time. There was an episode of Duck Tales based on this story for all you 80's kids out there like me! The story is taken from the book, Fairy Tales From the British Isles, retold by Amabel Williams-Ellis, and Illustrated by Pauline Diana Baynes,copyright, 1963, all rights reserved.

I found this story in a blue, rather worn (and adored) Children's collection, Favorite Stories Old and New that my grandmother gave to me when I was little. The publishing date in it is 1955, Doubleday & Company.

The Little Boy Who Wasn't Lost
This is the tale with some very introspective philosophy. A boy is lost in the woods and finds his way home with the help of a carrot hungry rabbit! It first appeared in August of 1949 in Story Parade Magazine, by Julilly House Hohler.

I hope that eventually I may collect enough stories in this section for a page all their own. These two tales were taken from a book called Folktales of Ireland that appeared in a series, Folktales of the World published by The University of Chicago Press in 1966. This book was edited and translated by Sean O'Sullivan.

Fairy Money
This story was recorded by Seán O Heochaidh, from Diarmaid Mac Seáin, Ceapach, Teelin, county Donegal, in October of 1946. It is the story of a man that is given a coin from a kindly stranger. A more common Irish tale of fairy money deals with coins which turn into leaves or something useless when one parts with them (272).

The Children of the Dead Woman
Note to Parents: This story may be too scary for small children (under the age of 7).

This story was recorded on August 7, 1935 by Liam Mac Coisdeala. The story tellers were Éamonn a Búrc, a tailor, and Aill na Brón from Kilkerrin, Carna, county Galway, who had heard the story from his grandfather. It is the tale about a woman believed dead, who visits her child nightly and is seen by the nanny the widower has hired, and then the husband.
"My grandfather saw one of the dead woman's children," said the story teller.
It was common belief in Irish oral tradition that the fairies were continually trying to abduct newborn children (usually males) to replenish their own fairy population, and that they also took young mothers into fairy land to suckle such abducted children. The Irish Folklore Commission has thousands of talkes illustrating this belief. In many of them, attempts to rescue the abducted woman failed at the last moment through lack of courage. More rarely, the attempt succeded, as in this version, but the rescued woman was struck dumb (273).

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