Celtic Folk Tales
Fairy realms, enchanted animals, giants and difficult promises recur in these tales associated with Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Breton traditions. Sources include Joseph Jacobs’s collections and Edmund Leamy’s literary fairy tales. Their versions do not all come directly from a village storyteller: source notes explain the particular book or earlier material used.
The collection ranges from comic trickery to violent tragedy. Check the guidance for the individual telling before reading it with children.
54 stories are in this collection right now.
Browse by region: Europe.
Celtic Folk Tales
The Shee an Gannon and the Gruagach Gaire
To win the king of Ireland’s daughter, the Shee an Gannon must find out why the Gruagach Gaire, whose laugh once filled the world, stopped laughing.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Shepherd of Myddvai
A Welsh shepherd wins a lovely maiden from the lake with the right kind of bread, but she warns him she will leave if he strikes her three times without cause.
Celtic Folk Tales
The Sea-Maiden
Promised to a sea-maiden before he was born, a fisherman’s son goes out with a huge sword and three animal friends, beheads giants and saves a princess.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Ridere of Riddles
Two princes flee a poisoning stepmother, and a string of strange deaths on the road gives them a riddle that even the Knight of Riddles cannot solve.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Russet Dog
The Russet Dog, the clever Highland fox, tricks a hunter, a cock and the poor wolf over and over, until one careless joke finally costs him dearly.
Celtic Folk Tales
The Little White Cat
Eileen delays a forced marriage with three impossible balls of fairy dew, while the Little White Cat guides a prince through enchanted islands to obtain her rescue.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Huntsman’s Son
Fergus, a huntsman’s son, gives shelter to three strange guests one stormy night, and each repays him when he tries to win a proud princess at Tara.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Lad with the Goat-Skin
Tom, a poor widow’s son dressed only in a goat-skin, wins three magic gifts from giants and sets out to make the gloomy princess of Dublin laugh three times.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The House in the Lake
A fisherman’s son spares a little trout that turns into a talking swan, and to free her he must walk the lake bed past a dragon to the fairy queen.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener
A gardener’s youngest son hunts a golden bird with the help of a talking fox, and keeps landing in trouble because he can never resist a golden prize.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Horned Women
Late one night twelve horned witches come knocking, take over a woman’s kitchen and spin by her fire, until the Spirit of the Well tells her what to do.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Golden Spears
Connla and Nora save a thrush from a hawk, and in thanks it leads them after nine fairy pipers into a crystal hall, across the sunset and under the sea.