Seán OSullivan, Legends from Ireland (London: B. T. Batsford 1977)
Introduction [...] The present volume places a collection of legends before the readers. Since these differ in both nature and origin from folktales, some comment on them may be called for. Folk belief and custom, on which legends are based, reflect the inner mind and behaviour of peoples more closely than do folktales, and they offer a fairly sure key to the ways of thought of our ancestors. The event described in a legend was regarded as an actual happening, so far as the folk - be they rural or townsfolk - were concerned. It might have been an unusual happening which, because of its nature, attracted popular attention and was credible and worthy of being kept alive. In addition to this, a legend was normally local; the places, persons, events and dates mentioned in the story were usually known to both [11] the narrator and the audience. While some legends have wandered far afield, in most cases they are more likely to be associated with some local place or person, if the conditions are suitable. A legend may range from a dimly-remembered event to a detailed account of some more recent unusual experience, often associated with beings from the otherworld - ghosts, fairies, spirits, mermaids and such. At a time when our forefathers believed in the existence of an invisible world close-by, whose inhabitants could, and did, intrude into human affairs for good or ill, the scene was set for innumerable legends which described the contacts. A legend will die only when its local roots have been severed and popular interest in it has ceased. It thrives best where social change comes slowly, and it is kept alive by constant repetition. As the first telling of a legend is usually more close in time and place to the event which it describes, it is more likely to better preserve the real facts than do later versions when the folks-eye view dims the outline and fantasy is added to a greater or lesser degree. In recent years some academics have concentrated on legendry, rather than on folktales, as a subject for serious study. They have found, however, that it is much easier to describe the basic characteristics of a legend than to define what it really is. It is localised; it is factual and often has some historic validity; it is told in ordinary speech, unlike some folktales which have long repetitive runs or rhetorics; it is a straightforward art form and is extremely variable; though usually short, it may, on the lips of an expert narrator, especially when he is telling of a personal experience, reach the length of even a folktale and comprise more than one episode; it describes events which the ordinary man has to face passively; it is credible, so far as the audience is concerned, especially when told in a convincing manner and referring to local persons, places and dates; it does not require a special setting or audience for its narration, as a folktale does, but can be introduced into normal conversation when the topic is relevant; and finally, a legend can have a moral or didactive force when it implies or lays down proper rules of behaviour.
The present volume contains the first collection of representative legends ever published in Ireland. It offers ninety-three examples in different genres. All are taken from oral tradition and give the personal style of the narrator. Sixteen (Nos. 9, 12, 15, 22, 27, 42, 72, 73, 75, 76a, 77, 81, 83, 87, 88 and 93) are in the English language, just as they were recorded. The remaining seventy-seven are translations which I have made from the original Irish versions, keeping as dose as possible to the style of the storytellers. The whole collection, has, therefore, been culled from living oral tradition. No item in it belongs to the scissors and paste variety, which is usually garbled and summarised. There is no book of this kind in existence. In years gone by, some such volumes were limited in scope (to fairy lore, for example), or else included items which ranged from folktales to translated extracts from early sagas, which were not legends at all. A similar criticism can be applied to some collections of legends published in other countries, which did not offer the individual narratives as examples of real oral tradition. All of the legends in this volume have been selected by me from the manuscripts in the Department of Irish Folklore in University College, Dublin. They have never before been published in English. The Notes give full references to the original manuscript sources, together with details of the name and address of each narrator and of the collector. Mention is also made in the Notes of those legends from oral tradition, which have been published in Irish, without translation, in Bialoideas: The Journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society. I do not claim to have included examples of all available Irish legend-types; this would require several volumes of this size. Both collection and indexing still continue, and it is probable that many new legend-types will be revealed in due course. An all-embracing collection of Irish legends remains for future research-workers and editors. The segregation of the individual items in this volume, under the different genres, has not been an easy task. Several legends might just as well have been placed in other sections as those in which they appear. For example, stories about the Devil (Section II) might equally well have been placed in Section IV (The Supernatural), and some legends in Section III (Origins) could have been allotted elsewhere. Again, in a country like Ireland, a religious flavour is to be found in many legends which do not, in the main, really belong to Section VI. A choice had to be made, and it is my hope that the Contents, as well as the Motif-Index and the General Index, will serve as a guide through the contents of this volume. I wish to acknowledge my debt to the various collectors who recorded these stories and to the narrators, many of whom are now dead, who handed them on. I am also grateful to Professor Bo Almqvist, Director of the Irish Folklore Department, for allowing me to use the material, and to the other members of the staff for their assistance. Seán Ó Súilleabháin [ top ]
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