Legends of Saints & Sinners. Collected and Translated from the Irish

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Legends of Saints & Sinners, by Douglas Hyde, Illustrated by Noel L. Nisbet
LEGENDS OF SAINTS AND SINNERS
ST. PATRICK AND CROM DUBH
Collected and Translated from the Irish by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D., D.Litt.
With Illustrations by Noel L. Nisbet
THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. LONDON DUBLIN AND BELFAST

CONTENTS.

Most of these pieces may be said to be in a true sense folk-lore, seeing that they have almost all lingered more or less vividly in the memory of people who for the most part could neither read nor write. Some of them obviously come from Continental sources, though how they first found their way into Ireland is obscure, and the derivation of some of them cannot now be traced; others, however, are of a purely native invention; while a third class engrafts native traits and ideas upon foreign subject matter.
The stories in this collection cover a good deal of ground and present many various aspects of folk tradition and folk belief. Of native Saints we find legends concerning Patrick, Columcille, Deglan, Moling and Ciaran; of foreign Saints we find legends of St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Martin; of unknown or mythical characters we find tales of Grainne Oïgh, Friar Brian, The Old Woman of Beare, and Mulruana. Of other well-known names, Oisín and Oscar and Solomon appear. Curiously enough I have not chanced upon any folk-tale told about Saint Brigit, the Mary of the Gael. There is, for some reason or other, a distinct predominance of Petrine stories among these legends.
When we consider the collection as a whole, we find that its purely Irish aspect is apparent in many ways, and in none more than in the very characteristic dovetailing of what is Pagan into what is Christian. But its omissions are even more distinctly Irish than its inclusions.