During his lifetime Australian Folklorist Joseph Jacobs would become one of the most important English authorities on folklore. Beginning in 1888, Jacobs began publishing his anthologies of popular world myths and legends. Drawing upon numerous literary sources Jacobs would popularize what have become some of the world’s best known folktales. In this 1891 collection of “Celtic Fairy Tales” Jacobs turned his attention for the first time to the myths and legends of the Celtic people. Like the famous German fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, the legends collected in “Celtic Fairy Tales” often tend towards the macabre. For example, in “Fair, Brown, and Trembling,” the oldest sister tried to kill the youngest, so she was banished to the ocean in a barrel with only a small amount of provisions for food. Modern readers will also recognize parallels between well-known fairy tales and the stories in Jacobs’ anthology. “Jack and his Comrades” is similar to “Town Musicians of Bremen,” a story about a group of farm animals who fight four robbers away from their home. All together twenty-six tales are included in this volume along with the original illustrations by John D. Batten.
