If you have read any of Garner's other collections of folk-tales you will know more or less what to expect here. There are only five stories in this short book they range from 10 to 35 pages in length, they are all originally Gaelic stories. Garner in his introduction explains that with these stories he has attempted to find "the middle ground" explaining that they are somewhere between the text originally taken down word for word from the last of many generations of storytellers in the nineteenth century before they were lost to a purely oral tradition and the bowdlerized children's stories that they were often corrupted into. Even so the texts that Garner does present us with are hardly the sort of narratives we are used to today, things happen because they happen, not for any reason. Often much of a story is baffling but there is much good to be found throughout, the most consistently enjoyable story I found was the first "Upright John" and the most baffling the last "Lurga Lom."
What do You think about The Lad Of The Gad (1980)?
