I’ve been stop-starting my way happily through Celtic Fairy Tales and More Celtic Fairy Tales, two late-19thC collections by the great Australian folklorist Joseph Jacobs, combined in a plump Senate paperback and handsomely illustrated by John D. Batten:
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books, language, language history, literature, science, stories | Tagged: books, Celtic folklore, culture, ethnolinguistics, Europe, European history, fairy tales, folklore, genetics, geography, history, Ireland, Joseph Jacobs, language, language history, literature, mythology, research, Royal Society, science, Scotland, stories | 
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Posted by Stan
The Banshee Lives in the Handball Alley is a collection of stories, superstitions and folklore (traditional and contemporary) told by children from three primary schools in Limerick city, Ireland. The stories were recorded and produced by Irish artists Michael Fortune and Aileen Lambert in 2004 and 2005.
The Banshee… has been described as “a celebration of the storyteller”, and – children being the best storytellers – it’s a lot of fun to watch or listen to. It was first screened in the infamous handball alley itself; you can see photos, along with more information about the project, at Fortune’s Folklore Collections website and at PublicArt.ie.
The video below is an excerpt from the film. I can’t pick a favourite moment, but I do love the debate about whether stepping on a crack will break your mother’s back, and the description of how the headless horseman (who apparently lived in Moyross) might have become headless: “he probably lost his head off a branch or something”.
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5 Comments | film, Hiberno-English, Ireland, stories | Tagged: art, films, folklore, Hiberno-English, Ireland, Irish English, Irish folklore, Limerick, stories, superstitions | Permalink
Posted by Stan
