The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu or Uisneach
This is the third of ‘The Three Sorrows of Storytelling’, and has a great variety of English titles and story-lines. It is a classic and Jeffrey Gantz (1981) describes it as ‘the most stunning tale ever written in Irish’. The earliest surviving text dates to the ninth century, followed by expanded versions in the fourteenth […]
The Adventure of Fearghus mac Léide (‘the grey one’) followed by Fearghus mac Léide and the wee folk
The earliest version of this tale is of the late seventh/eighth century. It contains the earliest reference to the middle Irish word luchorpán (‘little body’) or leprechaun (in this case a water sprite). It has broad content/themes: honour price (again), inter-tribal/province strife, a magic sword, little people of the Otherworld, a monster serpent in a […]