This is the first published edition from March 1951 by Puffin Books and includes twenty five tales, it is beautifully illustrated by John Harwood with six drawings inside along with the colour pictures on the front and back covers which I have included in this review. Harwood illustrated many children’s books including Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp under the Porpoise imprint which I covered in an earlier blog. I love the way that instead of using the Puffin Books logo on the front cover he has instead added a puffin swimming in the sea alongside the merman and the baby mermaid, who is the subject of the final tale in the book.

The book is initially quite difficult to get started with as it is written in form of dialect although fortunately all words in the Manx language are translated. You can see a sample of the text below and I found it much easier to follow when I read it out loud rather than simply reading as the rhythm of the language then makes more sense. You can guess what a lumper is from context, it seems to be similar to landlubber as Tom Gorry was on his first time out at sea with the fishing boats. Having said that a glossary at the back would have been interesting to bring together the various dialect words used through the book and confirm their exact meaning.

As you would expect from an island quite a few of the tales relate to the sea and the weird and wonderful creatures that apparently inhabit the watery realm, not just mermen and mermaids but evil such as the Glashtin who although a variety of water-horse comes in the form of a young man to drag unwary girls into the depths with him. Because of the history of the island the folk and fairy tales are influenced not only by nearby Celtic mythology and alongside that Irish christian myths such as St Patrick banishing the snakes from the Isle of Man as well as Ireland but there are also Norse origins as the island was a Viking stronghold for many years. It’s an interesting mix and the stories are told in a fun way that makes you keep reading once you have got into the swing of the language used.

One story I was a little surprised to be missing is that of the Fairy Bridge. The little people themselves are regularly referred to in the book with saucers of milk left out for them in many of the tales so that they are happy if they visit a cottage and don’t cause mischief but probably the best known link to them nowadays is the bridge and I was hoping for some background. Maybe there isn’t a specific tale but visitors to the island are even now encouraged to say hello to the fairies when crossing the bridge, which you would do quite easily as it is on the main A5 road from Douglas (the Isle of Man capital) to Port Erin in the south west of the island.

I read the book alongside a another volume ‘The Folklore of the Isle of Man’ by Margaret Killip which is one of the volumes comprising ‘The Folklore of the British Isles‘ and was first published by Batsford in 1975. This book gives a more rigorous and academic overview of the subject rather than simply retelling tales and it was interesting to look up the various creatures mentioned in the tales to get a deeper understanding of just what a Buggane or a Phynnodderee for example are and the powers each was believed to have. Bugganes feature in three of the tales and a Phynnodderee in two and this woodland spirit is depicted on the rear cover of the book.