Into a volume of very moderate dimensions, and of extremely moderate
price, Mr. Yeats has collected together the most characteristic of our
Irish folklore stories, grouping them together according to subject.
First come The Trooping Fairies. The peasants say that these are 'fallen
angels who were not good enough to be saved, nor bad enough to be lost';
but the Irish antiquarians see in them 'the gods of pagan Ireland,' who,
'when no longer worshipped and fed with offerings, dwindled away in the
popular imagination, and now are only a few spans high.' Their chief
occupations are feasting, fighting, making love, and playing the most
beautiful music. 'They have only one industrious person amongst them,
the lepra-caun--the shoemaker.' It is his duty to repair their shoes
when they wear them out with dancing. Mr. Yeats tells us that 'near the
village of Ballisodare is a little woman who lived amongst them seven
years. When she came home she had no toes--she had danced them off.' On
May Eve, every seventh year, they fight for the harvest, for the best
ears of grain belong to them. An old man informed Mr. Yeats that he saw
them fight once, and that they tore the thatch off a house. 'Had any one
else been near they would merely have seen a great wind whirling
everything into the air as it passed.' When the wind drives the leaves
and straws before it, 'that is the fairies, and the peasants take off
their hats and say "God bless them."' When they are gay, they sing. Many
of the most beautiful tunes of Ireland 'are only their music, caught up
by eavesdroppers.' No prudent peasant would hum The Pretty Girl Milking
the Cow near a fairy rath, 'for they are jealous, and do not like to hear
their songs on clumsy mortal lips.' Blake once saw a fairy's funeral.
But this, as Mr. Yeats points out, must have been an English fairy, for
the Irish fairies never die; they are immortal.

Then come The Solitary Fairies, amongst whom we find the little Lepracaun
mentioned above. He has grown very rich, as he possesses all the
treasure-crocks buried in war-time. In the early part of this century,
according to Croker, they used to show in Tipperary a little shoe
forgotten by the fairy shoemaker. Then there are two rather disreputable
little fairies--the Cluricaun, who gets intoxicated in gentlemen's
cellars, and the Red Man, who plays unkind practical jokes. 'The Fear-
Gorta (Man of Hunger) is an emaciated phantom that goes through the land
in famine time, begging an alms and bringing good luck to the giver.' The
Water-sheerie is 'own brother to the English Jack-o'-Lantern.' 'The
Leanhaun Shee (fairy mistress) seeks the love of mortals. If they
refuse, she must be their slave; if they consent, they are hers, and can
only escape by finding another to take their place. The fairy lives on
their life, and they waste away. Death is no escape from her. She is
the Gaelic muse, for she gives inspiration to those she persecutes. The
Gaelic poets die young, for she is restless, and will not let them remain
long on earth.' The Pooka is essentially an animal spirit, and some have
considered him the forefather of Shakespeare's 'Puck.