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Author | Padraic Colum |
---|---|
Illustrator | Willy Pogany |
Language | English |
Genre | Children's novel |
Publication date | 1916 |
Publication place | Ireland |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
The King of Ireland's Son is a children's novel published in Ireland in 1916 written by Padraic Colum, and illustrated by Willy Pogany. It is the story of the eldest of the King of Ireland's sons, and his adventures winning and then finding Fedelma, the Enchanter's Daughter, who after being won is kidnapped from him by the King of the Land of Mist.
The work is based in Irish folklore, described as "his great synthesis of fireside tales", [1] and "a marvellous compendium of Irish folktales re-told". [2] The 1916 edition published by Henry Holt is interleaved with plates of illustrations in full colour. [3]
This work is considered a classic of Irish children's literature, featuring a collection of interwoven magical stories that form a lengthy and complex narrative. [4] [5]
When the careless King of Ireland's son goes out,
His hound at his heel,
His hawk on his wrist,
A brave steed to carry him whither he list,
The blue sky above him,
The green grass below him
He meets an eccentric old man who invites him to a game of chess with the winner choosing the stakes. Characters such as Flann, also known as Gilly the Goat-Boy, the proud Lasarfhiona or Flame-of-Wine, the magical Spae-Woman, and the harsh farmer who employs Flann as a farmhand, contribute to making this story engaging and memorable.
In the first segment, Fedelma, the Enchanter's Daughter, the oldest son of the King of Ireland loses a wager against his father's enemy and should find him in a year and a day's time. He is advised by a talking eagle to spy on three swan maidens that will descend on a lake. They are the daughters of the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands, the wizard the prince is looking for. The prince is instructed to hide the swanskin of the swan with a green ribbon, who is Fedelma, the Enchanter's youngest daughter. After arriving at the Enchanter's kingdom, he promises marriage to Fedelma, resisting her sisters', Aefa and Gilveen, advances, and is forced to fulfill three difficult tasks to the Enchanter. [6]
In the chapter The Unique Tale, the Spae-Woman tells the heroes the following story: a queen wishes for a blue-eyed, blonde-haired daughter, and carelessly wishes her sons to "go with the wild geese". As soon as the daughter (named Sheen, 'Storm') is born, the seven princes change into gray wild geese and fly away from the castle. [7] It is later revealed that Sheen changed her name to Caintigern and became Queen when she married the King of Ireland, who, in turn, is the father of two of the main characters: the King of Ireland's Son and Gilly of the Goatskin ( Gilla Na Chreck An Gour ). The seven wild geese are, thus, their uncles. [8]
Although the book was written in America in the years before 1916, Colum was a close friend and colleague of some of those who led the Easter Rising. The King of Ireland's Son was the ultimate calling-up of Irish mythology and legend, and, paired with James Stephens' Irish Fairy Tales , made many happy hours for children curled up before glowing turf fires to read by the light of Tilley lamps in the long winter evenings of the new Ireland.
Another evolution from the original folktale was written by Brendan Behan, published in Brendan Behan's Island, 1962, pp. 136–141.
William Andrew Pogany was a prolific Hungarian illustrator of children's and other books. His contemporaries include C. Coles Phillips, Joseph Clement Coll, Edmund Dulac, Harvey Dunn, Walter Hunt Everett, Harry Rountree, Sarah Stilwell Weber, and N.C. Wyeth. He is best known for his pen and ink drawings of myths and fables. A large portion of Pogany's work is described as Art Nouveau. Pogany's artistic style is heavily fairy-tale orientated and often feature motifs of mythical animals such as nymphs and pixies. He paid great attention to botanical details. He used dreamy and warm pastel scenes with watercolors, oil paintings, and especially pen and ink.
Cath Maige Tuired is the name of two saga texts of the Mythological Cycle of Irish mythology. It refers to two separate battles in Connacht: the first in the territory of Conmhaícne Cúile Tuireadh near Cong, County Mayo, the second near Lough Arrow in County Sligo. The two texts tell of battles fought by the Tuatha Dé Danann, the first against the Fir Bolg, and the second against the Fomorians.
Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival.
"Iron John" is a German fairy tale found in the collections of the Brothers Grimm, tale number 136, about an iron-skinned wild man and a prince. The original German title is Eisenhans, a compound of Eisen "iron" and Hans. It represents Aarne–Thompson type 502, "The wild man as a helper".
The "swan maiden" story is a name in folkloristics used to refer to three kinds of stories: those where one of the characters is a bird-maiden, in which she can appear either as a bird or as a woman; those in which one of the elements of the narrative is the theft of the feather-robe belonging to a bird-maiden, though it is not the most important theme in the story; and finally the most commonly referred to motif, and also the most archaic in origin: those stories in which the main theme, among several mixed motifs, is that of a man who finds the bird-maiden bathing and steals her feathered robe, which leads to him becoming married to the bird-maiden. Later, the maiden recovers the robe and flies away, returning to the sky, and the man may seek her again. It is one of the most widely distributed motifs in the world, most probably being many millennia old, and the best known supernatural wife figure in narratives.
"The Six Swans" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812. It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451, commonly found throughout Europe. Other tales of this type include The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, and The Twelve Brothers. Andrew Lang included a variant of the tale in The Yellow Fairy Book.
"Hans My Hedgehog" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. The tale was translated as Jack My Hedgehog by Andrew Lang and published in The Green Fairy Book. It is of Aarne-Thompson type 441.
The King of the Cats is a folk tale from the British Isles. The earliest known example is found in Beware the Cat, written by William Baldwin in 1553, though it is related to the first-century story of "The Death of Pan". Other notable versions include one in a letter written by Thomas Lyttelton, 2nd Baron Lyttelton, first published in 1782, M. G. Lewis told the story to Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816, and a version was adapted by Joseph Jacobs from several sources, including one collected by Charlotte S. Burne. Walter Scott reported that it was a well known nursery tale in the Scottish Highlands in the eighteenth century. It can be categorised as a "death of an elf " tale: Aarne–Thompson–Uther type 113A, or Christiansen migratory legend type 6070B.
"The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It falls under Aarne–Thompson classification types 461, and 930.
"Nix Nought Nothing" is a fairy tale included in Joseph Jacobs's anthology, English Fairy Tales (1898). It is a translation of the Scottish tale "Nicht Nought Nothing", originally collected by Andrew Lang from an old woman in Morayshire, Scotland.
The Battle of the Birds is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in his Popular Tales of the West Highlands. He recorded it in 1859 from a fisherman near Inverary, John Mackenzie and was, at the time, building dykes on the Ardkinglas estate.
The Hairy Man is a Russian fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Crimson Fairy Book.
King Kojata or The Unlooked for Prince or Prince Unexpected is a Slavonic fairy tale, of Polish origin. Louis Léger remarked that its source was "one of the most important collections of Polish literature".
The Magic Swan Geese is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki, numbered 113.
"The Peasant's Wise Daughter", "The Peasant's Clever Daughter" or "The Clever Lass" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales as tale number 94. It has also spread into Bohemia and Božena Němcová included it into her collection of Czech national folk tales in 1846.
Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art was a magazine published in Dublin, Ireland, from December 1949 to July 1951. It was founded and edited by John Ryan.
Ileana Simziana or Ileana Sînziana is a Romanian fairy tale collected and written down by Petre Ispirescu between 1872 and 1886. It tells the story of an unnamed youngest daughter of an emperor, who dresses up as a man, goes to serve another emperor and rescues the titular princess Ileana. During a quest of obtaining the Holy Water she is hit by a curse of a monk that causes her to transform into a man - Făt-Frumos, who marries Ileana in the happy ending.
Adventures of Gilla Na Chreck An Gour is an Irish fairy tale collected by folklorist Patrick Kennedy and published in Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts (1866). The tale was also published by Irish poet Alfred Perceval Graves in his Irish Fairy Book (1909). Joseph Jacobs published the tale as The Lad with the Goat-Skin in his Celtic Fairy Tales.
Maria is the title given to a Filipino version of Cinderella collected by Fletcher Gardner and published in The Journal of American Folklore, in 1906. The story is related both to the international Cinderella narrative, as well as to the motif of the calumniated wife.