a less whimsical illustration that encapsulates the fun of searching an archive of over 15

The Archive...

Have a wander through the Fireside folktale archive below, and see what you stumble into. Use the filters to narrow the world down, or fling the doors wide and browse by country, region, theme, collector, or whatever takes your fancy, then let the table do the rest. A few clicks can carry you from storm-tossed coasts to mountain villages, from clever tricksters to quiet miracles, and you will often find that the story you meant to read is not the one that chooses you.

Archive under construction...

Structured Filters

Use these drop down lists to choose one or more filters to select groups of tales to investigate in more detail

Other than my own versions of tales (as indicated), the stories in this archive are in the public domain

Stories in this view:

3988

Title	Book	Author / Collector	Country	Subject	Year
The Huldre Dance On New Year's Eve	Icelandic Fairy Tales and Folk Tales	Å. Eskil Avenstrup	Iceland	The Huldre Dance On New Year’s Eve: hidden folk, festivity, seduction, danger, liminality, enchantment	1919
Ketil Von Silfrunarstad	Icelandic Fairy Tales and Folk Tales	Å. Eskil Avenstrup	Iceland	Ketil Von Silfrunarstad: courage, reputation, conflict, endurance, honour, legend	1919
The Fairies' Dancing-Place	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Fairies’ Dancing-Place: fairy ring, taboo, house-building, stubbornness, communal warning, supernatural revenge, domestic disruption, relocation, hidden gold, uneasy coexistence.	1892
The Huntsman's Son (2)	Irish Fairy Tales	Edmund Leamy	Ireland	The Huntsman’s Son: coming of age, forest life, yearning for adventure, music and bardcraft, hospitality, bravery, destiny, wandering stranger, heroism, transformation of life.	1906
The Rival Kempers	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Rival Kempers: spinning contest, courtship, female rivalry, domestic skill, matchmaking, social reputation, community festivity, supernatural judgement, industry, marriage choice.	1892
The House In The Lake (2)	Irish Fairy Tales	Edmund Leamy	Ireland	The House In The Lake: lake dwelling, kindness rewarded, animal transformation, swan maiden, enchantment, love, mystery, patience, magic, otherworld beauty.	1906
Owney And Owney-Na-Peak	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	Owney And Owney-Na-Peak: talking cats, eavesdropping, smithcraft, buried treasure, cunning poverty, enchanted objects, overheard secrets, sibling partnership, luck, comic suspense.	1892
The Little White Cat (2)	Irish Fairy Tales	Edmund Leamy	Ireland	The Little White Cat: captivity, giant foe, animal helper, magical kingship, rescue, courage, vengeance, enchanted court, liberation, unlikely saviour.	1906
Fergus O'Mara And The Air-Demons	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	Fergus O’Mara And The Air-Demons: temptation, piety, demonic pursuit, mountain haunt, storm terror, parental love, child spirit, blessed candle, repentance, divine protection.	1892
The Little Weaver Of Duleek Gate	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Little Weaver Of Duleek Gate: poverty, industry, humble hero, household struggle, luck, wit, social comedy, neighbourly life, labour, small-scale wonder.	1892
The Fairy Tree Of Dooros (1)	Irish Fairy Tales	Edmund Leamy	Ireland	The Fairy Tree Of Dooros: fairy revels, magical fruit, transformation, forbidden gifts, mortal desire, guardianship, punishment, wonder, enchantment, fairy law.	1906
Teigue Of The Lee (1)	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	Teigue Of The Lee: haunted house, invisible tormentor, household spirit, mockery, hidden treasure, mischief, social comedy, uncanny voice, greed, vanishing stranger.	1892
The Young Piper	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Young Piper: changeling motif, fairy music, child abduction, river crossing, foster-mother grief, uncanny talent, return to fairy kin, liminality, performance, loss.	1892
A Fairy Enchantment	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	A Fairy Enchantment: uncanny hospitality, fairy glamour, corpse-roasting, night terrors, storytelling, escape, disorientation, threshold crossing, eerie wit, supernatural testing.	1892
The Knighting Of Cuculain	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Knighting Of Cuculain: heroic initiation, prophecy, druid counsel, sacred kingship, warrior vows, supernatural steeds, battle destiny, youthful strength, arms and honour, fame.	1892
The Lady Of Gollerus (1)	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Lady Of Gollerus: merrow bride, sea enchantment, coastal Ireland, marriage across worlds, family, loss, longing, female virtue, return to the sea, mortal and fairy love.	1892
The Fairy Greyhound	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Fairy Greyhound: drunken folly, dream treasure, fairy hound, rath lore, holy water, greed, punishment, bodily distortion, terror, broken fortune.	1892
The Devil's Mill	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Devil’s Mill: pact with the devil, greed, trickery, corrupt landlord, soul-bargaining, impossible labour, retribution, blindness, moral warning, infernal justice.	1892
The Enchanted Cave	Irish Fairy Tales	Edmund Leamy	Ireland	The Enchanted Cave: hunting, otherworld journey, fairy court, love tested, enchantment, temptation, royal duty, courage, pursuit, destiny.	1906
The Man Who Never Knew Fear	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	The Man Who Never Knew Fear: fearlessness, graveyard vigil, ghostly encounters, courage, hidden wealth, forgiveness, haunted house, moral restitution, marriage, reward.	1892
Princess Finola And The Dwarf (1)	Irish Fairy Tales	Edmund Leamy	Ireland	Princess Finola And The Dwarf: hidden royalty, enchantment, exile, loyalty, sacrifice, fairy aid, identity, rescue, perseverance, love.	1906
The Golden Spears (2)	Irish Fairy Tales	Edmund Leamy	Ireland	The Golden Spears: sibling bond, mountain mystery, quest, poverty, courage, enchantment, family devotion, danger, wonder, perseverance.	1906
Seanchan The Bard And The King Of The Cats (2)	Irish Fairy Tales	W B Yeats	Ireland	Seanchan The Bard And The King Of The Cats (2): bardic pride, courtly satire, jealousy, learned vanity, magical cats, pursuit, poetic status, comic humiliation, supernatural kingship, saintly intervention.	1892
The Story Of Tuan Mac Cairill	Irish Fairy Tales	James Stephens	Ireland	The Story Of Tuan Mac Cairill: shape-shifting, reincarnation, ancient memory, survival, Ireland’s past, witness, transformation, sacred history, endurance, storytelling	1920
The Birth Of Bran	Irish Fairy Tales	James Stephens	Ireland	The Birth Of Bran: wondrous birth, hound hero, prophecy, animal loyalty, marvel, naming, fate, warrior culture, omen, companionship	1920
Oisin''s Mother	Irish Fairy Tales	James Stephens	Ireland	Oisin’’s Mother: transformation, deer woman, enchantment, love, wilderness, birth, divided nature, Otherworld, kinship, destiny	1920
The Wooing Of Becfola	Irish Fairy Tales	James Stephens	Ireland	The Wooing Of Becfola: desire, mistaken identity, otherworld lover, enchantment, secrecy, marriage, longing, deception, fate, courtly love	1920
The Little Brawl At Allen	Irish Fairy Tales	James Stephens	Ireland	The Little Brawl At Allen: rivalry, boasting, comic conflict, warriors, pride, disorder, household quarrel, honour, satire, reconciliation	1920
The Carl Of The Drab Coat	Irish Fairy Tales	James Stephens	Ireland	The Carl Of The Drab Coat: disguise, testing, humility, hidden greatness, challenge, courtly tension, warrior honour, revelation, strangeness, transformation	1920
The Enchanted Cave Of Cesh Corran	Irish Fairy Tales	James Stephens	Ireland	The Enchanted Cave Of Cesh Corran: cave mystery, enchantment, danger, supernatural beings, adventure, heroic encounter, hidden world, peril, marvel, confrontation	1920
Satan's Cloven Hoof	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	Satan’s Cloven Hoof: temptation, disguise, saint versus devil, chastity, spiritual testing, false appearances, holy resistance, demonic trickery, Christian morality, Glendalough legend	1888
The Leprechawn	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Leprechawn: hidden treasure, trickster mischief, magical reward, greed, household spirit, revenge for insult, regional variants, fairy shoemaker, cunning capture, elusive wealth	1888
Taming The Pooka	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	Taming The Pooka: shapeshifting terror, wild rides, trickster spirit, royal cunning, folklore logic, supernatural bargains, horse demon, comic danger, drunkenness, taming chaos	1888
The Sexton Of Cashel	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Sexton Of Cashel: sacred ruins, graveyard devotion, holy ground, humble piety, burial customs, memory of the dead, church decay, guardianship, poverty and reverence, Cashel legend	1888
The Banshee (2)	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Banshee: death warning, ancestral families, lamentation, prophecy, mourning, supernatural kinship, hostile spirits, tender farewell, old lineage, fate	1888
The Seven Kings Of Athenry	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Seven Kings Of Athenry: royal courtship, missing princess, riddling choice, comic monarchy, suitors in rivalry, castle legend, female autonomy, deception, old ruin, folktale kingship	1888
The Henpecked Giant	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Henpecked Giant: marriage satire, giant folklore, domestic power, courtship anxiety, comic reversal, family pressure, gender roles, bluster undone, household labour, mock heroics	1888
Satan As A Sculptor	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	Satan As A Sculptor: diabolic bargains, saintly power, seduction, rescue, humiliation of evil, sacred refuge, cliff carving, superstition, moral struggle, cunning justice	1888
The Police	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Police: eviction, colonial authority, divided loyalties, rural violence, social isolation, duty and danger, constabulary life, peasant resistance, illicit distilling, tragic kinship	1888
The Round Towers	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Round Towers: antiquarian mystery, sacred architecture, mythic origins, giant lore, fire worship, sun cults, holy wells, prehistoric Ireland, contested history, ruin and memory	1888
The Enchanted Island	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	The Enchanted Island: wandering island, enchantment, exile, cruel kingship, severed marriages, transformation, maritime wonder, punishment, western seascape, cautionary legend	1888
About The Fairies	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	About The Fairies: fairy lore, changelings, hidden worlds, abduction, glamour, fairy queens, rural belief, cattle magic, otherworld marriages, uneasy coexistence	1888
How The Lakes Were Made	Irish Wonders	D R McAnally	Ireland	How The Lakes Were Made: drowned cities, broken taboos, buried pagan past, landscape origins, divine punishment, vanished settlements, sacred memory, ruin beneath water, folklore geography, catastrophe	1888
The Foolish, Timid Rabbit	Jataka Tales	Ellen C. Babbitt	India	The Foolish, Timid Rabbit: panic spreads quickly when fear outruns reason.	1912
The Quarrel Of The Quails	Jataka Tales	Ellen C. Babbitt	India	The Quarrel Of The Quails: disunity brings ruin, cooperation brings strength.	1912
The Elephant Girly-Face	Jataka Tales	Ellen C. Babbitt	India	The Elephant Girly-Face: appearance deceives, courage and worth lie within.	1912
The Monkey And The Crocodile (2)	Jataka Tales	Ellen C. Babbitt	India	The Monkey And The Crocodile: cleverness overcomes betrayal and mortal danger.	1912
The Merchant Of Seri	Jataka Tales	Ellen C. Babbitt	India	The Merchant Of Seri: greed and ignorance waste value and opportunity.	1912
The Ox Who Won The Forfeit	Jataka Tales	Ellen C. Babbitt	India	The Ox Who Won The Forfeit: patience and honesty triumph over deceit.	1912
The Banyan Deer	Jataka Tales	Ellen C. Babbitt	India	The Banyan Deer: compassion, self-sacrifice, and mercy transform the powerful.	1912

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