James Stephens produced many retellings of Irish myths and fairy tales. His retellings are marked by a rare combination of humour and lyricism (Deirdre, and Irish Fairy Tales are often especially praised). He also wrote several original novels (The Crock of Gold, Etched in Moonlight, Demi-Gods) based loosely on Irish fairy tales. The Crock of Gold in particular has achieved enduring popularity and has often been reprinted.
Contents
The Crock of Gold
The Insurrection in Dublin
Reincarnations
The Adventures of Seumas Beg
The Rocky Road to Dublin
Here are Ladies
Mary, Mary
The Charwoman's Daughter
IRISH FAIRY TALES
The Demi-gods (1914)
The Insurrection in Dublin-
Stephens kept a daily journal of his experiences, and barely six months after the Irish Volunteers' Easter Rising took place this work was published.
Mary, Mary-
From the publication of its first chapters the appeal of "Mary" was felt in two or three countries. Mary Makebelieve was not just a fictional heroine--she was Cinderella and Snow-white and all the maidens of tradition for whom the name of heroine is big and burthensome. With the first words of the story James Stephens put us into the attitude of listeners to the household tale of folk-lore. "Mary, Mary" is the simplest of stories: a girl sees this and that, meets a Great Creature who makes advances to her, is humiliated, finds a young champion and comes into her fortune--that is all there is to it as a story. But is it not enough to go with Mary to Stephens' Green and watch the young ducks "pick up nothing with the greatest eagerness and swallow it with the greatest delight," and after that to notice that the ring priced One Hundred Pounds has been taken from the Jewellers' window, and then stand outside the theatre with her and her mother and make up with them the story of the plays from the pictures on the posters?--plays of mystery and imagination they must have surely been.
The Crock of Gold-
A fantasy, indeed, with a charm all its own of gaiety, beauty, wisdom and wit only for the few who will read as it is written. "Here comes an Irishman well acquainted with elves, who laughs and sings and makes literature as he goes."
Irish Fairy Tales-
The Story of Tuan Mac Cairill -- The Boyhood of Fionn -- The Birth of Bran -- Oisi'n's Mother -- The Wooing of Becfola -- The Little Brawl at Allen -- The Carl of the Drab Coat -- The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran -- Becuma of the White Skin -- Mongan's Frenzy
