The successors of the oral transmitters, writers and artists, also drew on the lore of former times for their stories and pictures. Some of the writers simply recorded the tales that they heard, but others used the themes and suggestions that they’d heard in the Celtic countryside as a basis around which to build tales of their own. In a sense, they were following a tradition that dated all the way back to the Celtic Bards who changed and embellished some of the ordinary events that they recited into something marvelous and strange. Many of these writers had either Celtic backgrounds or were interested in Celtic matters. Relatively recent writers such as American H.P. Lovecraft, with his lurking terrors in the hills of rural Rhode Island, or British writers such as Arthur Machen, with his stories of strange little people hiding in the hollows of rural Wales, owe much to the stories and storytellers of earlier times. They look toward talespinners such as Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who wrote about wizard Earls emerging out of lakes or young girls marrying mouldering corpses (a common theme in some of the more gruesome Irish and Scottish legends); or to the collectors of rural folklore such as Jeremiah Curtin, Elias Owen, or Lady Gregory, with their fearful stories of small children being carried away by shadowy creatures that dwelt amongst (or sometimes under) the gloomy hills.
What do You think about Celtic Lore & Legend (2012)?
