Wicklow Folk Tales

About this book

Wicklow Folk Tales gathers stories linked to villages, mountains, roads and historic sites throughout County Wicklow, drawing particularly on traditions from West Wicklow. Brendan Nolan, an experienced storyteller, brings together accounts of fairies, spirits, magic and everyday life, preserving the texture of stories associated with the county’s oral tradition.

Among the subjects are a farmer who returns from market to find himself dead and buried, smugglers in Bray, a maiden connected with the future St Kevin at Glendalough, and a sleeping army at Rathdrum. Other tales concern Wicklow foxes, the Derrybawn cow, a supposed cure for baldness, Glenmalure, the Hempenstall Military Road and the Wicklow Mountains.