It took me a while to finish this, largely because I'd read quite a few of the stories in other collections. There's a lot of Crofton Croker here, but there's a lot of other stuff too. It is rather a landmark collection, really, a key volume in the whole Celtic Revival, and it presents a nice variety of tales of various types and from various parts of the country. Included is the epic The Three Wishes, which drives one to have some sympathy for the devil, and the story of a bard's feud with the King Of The Cats which is outrageously funny, but the most hair-raising stories are the Christian fables, such as the one about the guy who has persuaded everyone that there's no such thing as a soul who has to beg a child to torture him to death with a small blunt knife to prove otherwise, and the daughters of the king converted by St Patrick who immediately elect to die and go to heaven. There's logic to it, and I'm pretty sure I heard stories like that growing up from teachers and priests and nuns and thoroughly approved of them. For anyone interested in Irish folklore, almost unquestionably the best place to start.