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Magic: A Very Short Introduction

clear that Caulfield has endeavoured to retain the oral feel of the initial transcriptions. As he explains in his Translator’s Note: ‘I have attempted to render the stories as I might have heard them told in English around my grandmother’s hearth in south-east Mayo in the 1940s a place where English and Irish have sat side by side’ (15). In terms of explication and annotation, Ó Súilleabháin’s original Preface has been retained, as have his introductions to each category of tale considered. Ó Súilleabháin’s system of classification (which divides the tales into the following categories: ‘Our Saviour and His Mother’, ‘Priests’, ‘The Devil’, ‘Penances’, ‘Visits to the Other World’, ‘Rebellious Angels’, ‘Saints’, ‘Return of the Dead from Purgatory’, ‘Piety’ and ‘God Deals Justly’) is by no means foolproof, and many of the stories could belong under multiple headings. But this is a solid and sensible system of organization, and one that might be more widely applicable. In spite of the weight of his scholarship, Ó Súilleabháin articulates his guidance to the reader with characteristic charm, and the occasional burst of gentle humour, and often succeeds in transforming what could be a dry explication of motifs into an enticing invitation to lose oneself in the often dreamlike and fantastical world of these tales. His expressions of national pride and religious sentiment might jar somewhat with the sensibilities of the presentday scholar, but they are perfectly in keeping with the original tone of the project, which had an instructive spiritual element. As previously noted, undoubtedly the central achievement of the present volume is the fact that it has made a treasure trove of Irish lore available to an English-speaking audience for the first time, something that will no doubt inspire further research both at home and abroad. It will also, one hopes, further encourage work that considers Irish religious lore within the European tradition. In relation to current debates regarding the history of religious expression in Ireland, the volume is also particularly pertinent. In at least partial opposition to Emmet Larkin’s dominant model of Ireland’s ‘devotional revolution’, Ó Súilleabháin’s work presents an Ireland that preserved and reiterated ancient apocryphal tales many decades after Cardinal Cullen’s sweeping reforms of the Church, an Ireland in which people appear to have found these narratives as instructive, useful, and uplifting as orthodox texts. Yet these academic concerns cannot be allowed to obscure fully the charm and sheer entertainment value of the book. Despite the volume’s scholarly trappings, Scéalta Cráibhtheacha, both in its original form and in translation, achieves the rare feat of being at once an erudite scholarly work, and a simple, enchanting storybook. Indeed, one could imagine many of the stories in the collection appealing strongly to children, and it would be pleasing to see an illustrated version of a selection of the tales. Furthermore, it seems that this dual function was central to Ó Súilleabháin’s vision the whole time.