People in the Legends
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. He was a central figure of the “Irish Literary Revival,” which sought to revalue Irish culture and folklore.
In collections such as Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), he gathered and introduced fairy stories from around Ireland. He played a major role in making Irish fairies such as the leprechaun and the banshee known to the world.
A female fairy of Irish folklore who announces death by wailing. Attached to old families, she is said to cry around the house before a family member dies. In English she has also become a byword for wailing.
A fairy of Irish folklore in the form of a small old man who makes shoes. He secretly keeps a pot full of gold coins, and if caught he will reveal where the treasure is, but if you take your eyes off him for a moment, he vanishes.
