The Crock of Gold is a fairy tale, which, like a winding Irish country road, wanders through a charming landscape of creatures little and large, mysterious and plain, mortal and immortal; each with his, her or its own opinion on which way the world spins and to what end.

The lore of ancient Ireland comes to life in this collection of classic folk tales retold for modern readers written by James Stephens and published in 1920.

Sixteen-year-old Mary Makebelieve shares a small room with her mother, a charwoman, in the tenements of early twentieth-century Dublin. While Mrs. Makebelieve is at work cleaning the houses of the wealthy, Mary wanders around the city and its parks absorbed in daydreams. Her encounter with a policeman who appears to signal romantic interest in her is the beginning of Mary's coming-of-age story, which combines elements of folk- or fairytale with a complex vision of human psychology and the ...

The bookshelves of European literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From this continent their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is James Stephens.

Set amid early-twentieth-century Dublin's tenements, The Charwoman's Daughter follows Mary Makebelieve, a charwoman's child whose dutiful love for her mother and tentative romance awaken a fierce, imaginative resilience. Stephens blends fable and urban realism: the streets seem animate, yet the material pressures of hunger, work, and respectability remain palpable. Situated between the Celtic Twilight and the emerging documentary impulse of Dubliners, the novel's musical sentences, gentle ...

Irish Fairy Tales is a retelling of ten Irish folktales by the Irish author James Stephens. The English illustrator Arthur Rackham provided interior artwork, including numerous black and white illustrations and sixteen color plates. The stories are set in a wooded, Medieval Ireland filled with larger-than-life hunters, warriors, kings, and fairies. Many stories concern the Fianna and their captain, Fionn mac Uail, from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology.

The Charwoman's Daughter is the strange wistful story of sixteen-year-old Mary, the only child of her fiercely protective, widowed mother... Mary and her mother live in a one-room tenement flat that is home to the rituals of their bitter love. By day her mother cleans the houses of the Dublin rich, while Mary makes observations as she walks through the city. The imaginative richness of her insight makes the city come alive as a place that is both strange and wonderful, remote yet friendly....

Once on a time Conachúr mac Nessa was on a journey, and had to pass the night at the house of Felimid mac Dall, his storyteller. He was annoyed because his wife, Maeve, had not come with him, but Maeve had the knack of annoying him more than any one else was able to; so that when he thought of her his mind went intriguing and adventuring, for he was always trying to get the better of her, and was seldom without the feeling that she was getting or had just got the best of him. For this reas...

Irish Fairy Tales is a retelling of ten Irish folktales by the Irish author James Stephens. The English illustrator Arthur Rackham provided interior artwork, including numerous black and white illustrations and sixteen color plates. The stories are set in a wooded, Medieval Ireland filled with larger-than-life hunters, warriors, kings, and fairies. Many stories concern the Fianna and their captain, Fionn mac Uail, from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology.The book was first publishe...

The story is about a man named Fergus Fionnliath who dislikes dogs, and Fionn, the son of Uail, who is fond of them. Fionn's mother, Muirne, and aunt, Tuiren, visit him and his companions, the Fianna. Tuiren falls in love with an Ulster gentleman, Iollan Eachtach and they get married, but Iollan has a past with a lady of the Shi’ named Uct Dealv, with whom he was sweetheart for years.

The story of a young girl raised in isolation in preparation to marry the King of Ulster sounds at first a little outdated.That is until you call it what it is - an arranged marriage and child abuse.These are themes that continue to exist and they give 'Deirdre' a resonance in the 21st century.The girl at the heart of the story eventually falls in love with a young man and they run away to Scotland - cue much relief.There is a nasty twist in the tale, howeve...

Irish Fairy Tales is a retelling of ten Irish folktales by the Irish author James Stephens. The stories are set in a wooded, Medieval Ireland filled with larger-than-life hunters, warriors, kings, and fairies. Many stories concern the Fianna and their captain, Fionn mac Uail, from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology.|Wikipedia|StoriesThe Story of Tuan mac CairillThe Boyhood of FionnThe Birth of BranOisín's MotherThe Wooing of BecfolaT...