Meeting the Other Crowd : The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0717136590 ISBN 13: 9780717136599

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan, 2003

Synopsis

'The Other Crowd', 'The Good People', 'The Wee Folk' and 'Them' are a few of the names given to the fairies by people in Ireland. Honoured for their gifts and feared for their wrath, the fairies remind us to respect both the world we live in and forces we cannot see. In Meeting the Other Crowd , Eddie Lenihan presents a book about a hidden Ireland, a land of mysterious taboos, dangers, other worldly abductions, enchantments and much more. It is a world which most Irish people acknowledge exists, but which few of them, except the very oldest or professional folklorists, know much more about. Eddie Lenihan opens our eyes to this invisible world with the passion and bluntness of a great storyteller. In doing so he provides one of the finest collections of Irish folklore in modern times.

About this title

About the Author

Storyteller, teacher, folklorist and author of numerous books and recordings, Eddie Lenihan has been collecting traditional stories and lore from an older generation for nearly thirty years. He lives in Co. Clare. A director, writer and editor, Carolyn Eve Green produced an eight-part award-winning audio series for children, Secrets of the World, which includes the work of Eddie Lenihan and others. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* During folklore's first and greatest period, the end of the nineteenth century, such gifted writers as Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats wandered the Irish countryside, gathering the oral vestiges of a great tradition. Publishing their gleanings later, sometimes altered in transcription, they garnered an audience eager for tales of heroes, fairies, and gods. Such compilations as theirs remain major sources of Irish mythology. One of the best-known seanachies, or traditional tale spinners, in Ireland today, Lenihan is an Irish-speaking schoolmaster in the very area where Gregory and Yeats gathered their tales. He discloses that, despite the arrival of fax, Internet, and cell phone, the old tales persist. His fresh collection includes some famous motifs, such as the "fairy blast" that steals away people and things, but also such regionally specific figures as Biddy Early, the White Witch of Clare--a historical figure around whom myths have accrued. Lenihan focuses on the "other crowd" of the title: the fairy people, who are the diminished remnants of old gods, still able to affect the world of humankind. This is not quaint fluff but the powerful, sometimes disturbing lore of a world parallel to and occasionally intersecting ours. A major contribution to its field, the book is also compulsively readable, not least because Green, an audio producer, has helped capture the torque of Irish speech in Lenihan's storytelling. Patricia Monaghan
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About this edition

• Publisher: Gill & Macmillan
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0717136590
• ISBN 13: 9780717136599
• Binding: Hardcover