I didn't rate this book very highly, but the story (stories) wasn't really that bad. I liked the idea that the author had wrangled up Gaelic old tales, some directly from ye old folks, and put them together to try and make a somewhat cohesive book. But this book had a hard time keeping my interest, try as I might. It was relatively short and the tales weren’t that bad. There’s just something about that style I don’t get along with. I read the author’s note at the beginning; it read just fine, and was a rather interesting blurb. It’s like she turned something on specifically to write the book and I'm not dialed in properly. ( )

Reprint. Orig. publ. New York, NY : Longman, Green & Co., 1927 ( )

As the Gubbaun Saor - the great smith of Ireland - lay dying, his son took up his flute, and played the music of the Faery Hills. "Thin and faint at first and of an unearthly sweetness it filled the mind as with a heaven of stars. It had the sound of every instrument and the sound of singing voices in it. Slow rhythms moved through it like sea-waves: light, fierce rhythms leaped like flame: it turned and twisted on itself in intricate mazes and dances of delight. It rose and swelled till it filled the tent of the sky. It slid away into hollows and secret caverns of the earth - chilled and drenched with sweetness. It ebbed and ebbed, withdrawing itself as Cleena's Wave withdraws - a ripple of foam on the void - an echo - a soundless abysm."

It is this sweet music, with its hypnotic rhythms and enchanting tones, its strange power to move the spirit and touch the heart, that can be heard all through Ella Young's achingly beautiful The Wondersmith and His Son, a collection of fourteen Irish tales concerning that magical smith, and inventor of marvels, known here as the Gubbaun Saor, and elsewhere as Goibniu. Collected by Young both in Irish and English, in the small villages of the west of Ireland - in Clare, Kerry, and on Mayo's Achill Island - these tales come to us from the storehouse of a great folk tradition, their strength and beauty undiminished by the telling.

Again and again, as I read them, I was struck by the sheer poetry of the language, and the deceptively simple power of the stories themselves. Here is the Gubbaun, longing for the son he does not have, and willing to trade the daughter he does, for a stranger's boy. And here is the Gubbaun, learning too late that his own daughter - the wise Aunya, capable of outwitting even her great father - will always be his true child, and the true inheritor of his mind.

Here is the generous Gubbaun, offering his blessing to the Pooka: "My blessing to you, Brother of mine; White Love of Running Water; White Wave of Turbulent Sea. I will win you lovers and new kingdoms. You shall be a song in the heart; a dream that slips from city to city; a flame; a whiteness of peace in the murk of battle; a honied laughter; a quenchless delight. These, O my Brother, because of me: and at the last, my hand upon your neck."

Here is the Gubbaun, giving his son the road-blessing, before sending him off to win a bride (the superior Aunya, of course!): My blessing on the road that is smooth," said the Gubbaun, "and on the rough road through the quagmire. A blessing on night with the stars; and night when the stars are quenched. A blessing on the clear sky of day; and day that is choked with thunder. May my blessing run before you. May my blessing guard you on the right hand and on the left. May my blessing follow you as your shadow follows. Take my road-blessing."

And here, finally, is the Gubbaun, lost in the dreams of old age, waiting to be called forth, one last time, by his adoptive son: "I know a Forest," said the Gubbaun, "a dark Forest - the leaves of it are days and years, the twisted boughs of it are centuries and millenniums - and I am tangled in its dark and crooked ways: I am caught in its thorny branches: I am lost."

There is magic here, and beauty, and all the strange and disquieting enchantment that is the reward of true mythology. Here are no cute stories of rainbows with pots of gold, no leprechauns (I'm looking at you, David), no pleasant tales that ask little of the reader, and give little in return. No, these are tales of power. They demand that we speak their language, and offer no extraneous explanations, of who is who, and what is what. No mention is made here of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and although Balor and the Fomorians do appear, the assumption is that the reader will understand who they are. Terms are also not explained, and the modern reader, with no knowledge of Irish, might be forgiven for wondering just how the Gubbaun could build a "Dune" (no, it isn't made of sand...). But while these tales assume a certain level of knowledge, and demand engagement, they repay the reader with true wonderment.

Selected as a Newbery Honor Book in 1928, The Wondersmith and His Son was originally published for children, but is it a children's book? I honestly couldn't say - I know only that I was a child again, as I read it, with all the mystery, and beauty, and terror of the world still before me. ( )