“All three drove furiously towards Cruachan”, photo W H Margetson

The Wonderful Project Gutenberg have added two very interesting titles to their collection. Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race Written by M I Ebbutt and with 51 illustrations, like the one to the left, this book tells stories from the 8th Century onwards. The book also includes a prose version of “The Countess Cathleen”, a play by W B Yeats. The preface says: In refashioning, for the pleasure of readers of the twentieth century, these versions of ancient tales which have given pleasure to story-lovers of all centuries from the eighth onward, I feel that some explanation of my choice is necessary. Men’s conceptions of the heroic change with changing years, and vary with each individual mind; hence it often happens that one person sees in a legend only the central heroism, while another sees only the inartistic details of mediæval life which tend to disguise and warp the heroic quality.

It may be that to some people the heroes I have chosen do not seem heroic, but there is no doubt that to the age and generation which wrote or sang of them they appeared real heroes, worthy of remembrance and celebration, and it has been my object to come as close as possible to the mediæval mind, with its elementary conceptions of honour, loyalty, devotion, and duty. I have therefore altered the tales as little as I could, and have tried to put them as fairly as possible before modern readers, bearing in mind the altered conditions of things and of intellects to-day.

Of particular interest to us are Cuchulain, the Champion of Ireland, The Countess Cathleen, Black Colin of Loch Awe, and The Marriage of Sir Gawayne. There are many others inlcuding Danish stories, Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon legends. You can read the full text here or download in different formats here,

Edmud Dulac’s Fairy Book

Subtitled Fairy-Tales of the Allied Nations (?), this book contains some folk-tales from England, Russia, France, Italy, Belgium and Japan! There are two little gems inside, including The Buried Moon which is an English tale of the capture and torment of the Full Moon that is very whistfully written and The Queen of the Many-Coloured Bedchamber, which is a tale in the Finn MacCumhail (Finn Mac Cool) Cycle.

They were gladly welcomed and treated with the most generous hospitality. When they had eaten and drank, the Queen led them into a vast bedchamber decorated in the form and manner of the rainbow. Over the ceiling were the seven colours in their natural order. Round the walls they ranged themselves in the same fashion, and even the carpet itself was formed of seven hues to correspond. If the rainbow itself had been caught and tied up in a room, the effect could not have been more remarkable. It was indeed a many-coloured bedchamber!

You can read the full text here and choose from different formats here.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS