Abstract
THIS dainty volume is made up of a collection of papers communicated to various societies and journals. As much of the information was collected at first hand, the book is a valuable contribution to the literature of Irish folklore. The expressed purpose kept in view was to find, and show, some correspondence between the description of Irish fairies and that of actual pigmies found, dead and alive, in various parts of the world, and that purpose gives unity to the work, which is more of a monograph than a folklore drag-net. The correspondence made out is certainly very striking. There are also rare pigmies to be met with in Ireland as well as elsewhere. But of the actual existence of pigmy communities in Ireland no evidence is given. The fairies there, as elsewhere, haunt “raths and souterrains.” They occupy Neolithic megalithic structures. The photographs, plans, and descriptions of some fairy souterrains give the work special value. One recognises the invariably oriented creepway. Only on one plan the north point is marked, that of Knockdhu (p. 30). If the true north is given, the cove, which is Sy ft. long, is oriented 70° N.W.-S.E. The entrance is south-east; and assuming a sky-line elevation of one degree, the star Antares is indicated about 1700 B.C., a date by no means late for a Neolithic culture in the north of Ireland.
Ulster Folklore.
By Elizabeth Andrews. Pp. xiii + 121 + xii plates. (London: Elliot Stock, 1913.) Price 5s. net.
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GRIFFITH, J. Ulster Folklore . Nature 92, 343 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/092343a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/092343a0
