Saturday, March 17, 2012

Book Bounty: Irish Earth Folk




Irish Earth Folk, by Diarmuid Mac Manus (The Devin-Adair Company, 1959). Some line illustrations (by Lewis F. White?), as well as black and white photos of reputed fairy trees, hills, roads, and forts. This is a copy of a book we had in the local public library that I usually checked out at least once a summer in my teen years. The author, Mac Manus, was a friend of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. He investigated and reported on the fairies--not as myths and legends (though he reviews that aspect as background) but as witnessed and attested encounters, within living memory (at least as of 1959). As such it reads not unlike encounters with ghosts, sasquatches, or flying saucers, but with a completely different eerie tang or taste to it.

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