The Middle Kingdom : the faerie world of Ireland

"No matter what one doubts", wrote Yeats, "one never doubts the faeries for...they stand to reason." The author, a friend of both Yeats and the great folklorist Douglas Hyde, is a staunch believer in "the ancient and continuing spirit life of the countryside". Writing not as folklorist but as an historian, he records many manifestations of the Irish fairy world in recent years. Strikingly persuasive, this tackles in a serious and intelligent manner a subject that has a strong romantic appeal. "[Among the books I read at the Beaconsfield Public Library] I remember being impressed by Dermot MacManus' The Middle Kingdom , which had a great effect on me, and is probably one of the most influential books I've ever read", Terry Pratchett (in his 1999 talk to the Folklore Society) 'No matter what one doubts,' wrote W.B.Yeats, 'one never doubts the faeries for . . . they stand to reason.' The author, an intimate friend of Yeats and a friend too of the great folklorist Douglas Hyde and the myriad-minded mystic G.W.Russell ('A.E.'), was a staunch believer in 'the ancient and continuing spirit life of the countryside'. Writing not as a folklorist but as a historian, Diarmuid MacManus records in factual detail many manifestations of the Irish faery world early in the twentieth century. He tells how the Thornhill fairy appeared to two sisters in their room, and the Mount Leinster fairy to a young woman as she was taking the cows home, and a young girl tried to pat the Wicklow pooka as it walked beside her, but her hand went right through it. This is a strikingly persuasive book, tackling in a serious and intelligent manner a subject that has a strong romantic appeal. The author set out to write the book with certain principles in first, that a central character in each incident was still alive at the time the book was first published (in 1959); second, that he could vouch for their reliability; and third, that each agreed to stand up, if asked, and vouch for the truth of the experience. Except in a few instances, those telling the stories had been friends of the author for many years. Since its publication forty years ago it has retained its uniqueness as the only collection of true Irish fairy tales. 1. The middle kingdom -- 2. The fairy folk -- 3. Fairy trees -- 4. The Pooka -- 5. Pranks and mischief -- 6. Fairy ground and paths -- 7. The stray sod -- 8. Hostile spirits and hurtful spells -- 9. The problem of reality -- Appendix I. Biddy Early -- Appendix II. Magic cures -- Appendix III. Cures of the countryside.