Seanachai: the storyteller's story

This is a gripping and intelligent modern fairy/ghost story in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm. Quintessentially Irish and based loosely on a collection of Irish Myths, ancient and relatively modern. It is not a long novel being only 75,000 words and divided into 20 chapters. There is an overall mythic schema of the failings of mankind being linked to the failings of the old Gods who made them in their image. A young couple go on holiday to a remote cottage on the Ring of Kerry. On the second night they are awakened apparently by an Irish Tramp, who turns out to be a travelling storyteller or Seanachai (Shawn-ah-key), and it is soon clear that he is a singular figure perhaps even a ghost. He tells stories based on old Irish legends that seem to interweave with the past and present lives of the young couple. Kay, the heroine, who is of Irish stock is persuaded by the Seanachai to revisit the Puck Fair in Killorglin the town of her birth. Here the true and unpleasant nature of her childhood is exposed. The couple struggle with the unreality of the situation they find themselves in, but the inexorable logic of the Storyteller pulls them further and further into the world of spirits, fairies and even Gods.

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