Folk Irish tales and legends

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The presence of special fairy tales, myths and legends is inherent in any nation. But Ireland can truly be called a magical land of fairy tales, legends and myths. The fabulous creatures that inhabit the Emerald Isle coexist perfectly not only in fairy tales, but also in the everyday life of the Irish, as elements of superstitious folklore. In the article you will learn about the most famous fairy tales, legends and myths of mysterious Ireland.

Ireland Fairytale

No wonder Ireland is called the Emerald Isle. All year round the green cover of this country retains its freshness. Incredible rolling plains, bizarre hills and dense forests - all this holds many secrets.

Since ancient times, the people of Ireland prefer oral speech to writing. Undoubtedly, written documents exist. But the main knowledge that the inhabitants passed on to each other for centuries was oral. Fairy tales, myths, legends - this is the oral folklore that contained all the mystical beliefs of the Irish.

Characters of fairy tales andlegends

Despite the fact that there are a lot of characters in ancient fairy tales, there are a few main ones that you will find in most texts.

1. Perhaps the most famous Irish character in numerous fairy tales and legends is the leprechaun. In another way, it is also called leprihaun. The leprechaun is somewhat similar to a Russian brownie. A middle-aged man, small in stature, with a beard. This character is distinguished by special cunning and ingenuity, but at the same time he is a rather greedy creature. The kid is engaged in shoe business, wears a green suit and hat, is greedy for alcohol. You can read about it, for example, in the Irish fairy tale "Field of Daisies".
2. Cluricons are relatives of leprechauns, they are very fond of wine and wear red hats. They are frequent characters in Irish mythology.
3. Who, if not elves, occupies a central role in almost all the legends of Ireland. Elves, as keepers of the Irish forests, are the central characters in the entire mythical epic of Ireland. These people are benevolent, they are more noble than leprechauns, and they are smaller in size. Even elves can fly. Read about them in "The Elf's Glass Slipper".
4. Mermaids, werefoxes, vampires, banshees, grogohi - there are many fabulous heroes of fantastic Ireland.

Folk Tales

Irish folk tales differ from fairy tales in other countries in that they rarely have a happy ending. Most often, at the end of each you will find a moralizing, a conclusion thatevery reader should do. After reading, there is something to think about, there is no description of the end, everything is clear anyway. For children, this is of paramount importance, since they themselves think out the ending, while analyzing the whole story. Basically, these are short Irish fairy tales for children with an instructive ending. In most of them, the main role is played by demons, witches, sorcerers and mythical creatures - leprechauns, elves and mermaids.

The most famous folk Irish fairy tales are "White Trout", "Bewitched Pudding", "History of the Cap", "Leprechaun the Little Trickster", "The Piper and Puck" and others.

Irish epic

Mythology is based on Celtic traditions. Knowledge of the Irish epic comes from some of the manuscripts that have survived to this day. One such source is the "Book of the Brown Cow", dating from the 12th century.

Irish sagas are written mainly in prose, but there is also a poetic style. The writing style is crisp and clear. And the main theme is the theme of heroic love. At the same time, everything is described brightly, colorfully, fantastically and very fabulously.

Irish Tellers of Ancient Legends

Due to the fact that writing was used only for sacred knowledge and rituals, all sagas were passed from mouth to mouth. There were people specially trained for this - bards and filids.

Bards worked on the poetic depiction of ancient legends. At the same time, they composed music and sang well-known legends to everyone. In addition to fairy tales, bards oftenthey also sang of historical figures, sang about the events of history. They were teachers who knew a lot and could teach it to the younger generation.

Filids performed the function of priests. They were some kind of prophets with high knowledge about the genealogy of the main clans. The epic legends of Ireland were told a lot in their songs in the form of narratives. Later, these stories developed into sagas.

After the filids disappeared, Christian monks started writing Irish sagas around the 8th century. Now you can see the Christian orientation of almost all the fairy tales, legends and myths of Ireland.

The most famous and interesting sagas: "The Expulsion of the Sons of Usnekh" (the story is similar to "Tristan and Isolde"), "The Tale of the Boar MacDato".

Myths of ancient Ireland

The mythology of Ireland is closely connected with the thinking of the ancient Irish. Belief in the afterlife, parallel worlds, rebirth … The center and beginning of the mythology of Ireland is the first person Fintan mac Bora. He is the progenitor of ancient people (like the Christian Noah, for example).

And the real ancestors of the Irish people are the sons of Mile of Spain. They were the first to arrive in Ireland and won the battle with the locals who worshiped the goddess Dan. For their victory, they used the magic and support of the goddesses Eriu, Banba and Fodla. But there is a sacred world of the island with the goddess Danu, which goes underground.

Sid is a magical hill, which is a parallel world in which gods and goddesses live, the underworld in whichinhabited by all magical creatures. In another way, this place is called Apple Island - this is a magical country that is located in Ireland, but no one has ever found it.

Legends, myths and folk tales for children in Ireland - a real storehouse of knowledge. In addition to instructive motives, you can get in touch with the history of the ancient people, try to understand their structure of mythological thinking - what they believed in, what they thought about, how the ancient Irish lived. Irish fairy tales and legends are something that you can interest not only your child, but also yourself.