Reading Notes: Celtic Fairy Tales, Part A

For the first half of this week's reading, I chose to focus on the Celtic Fairy Tales unit. Specifically, I chose to focus on the story called The Shepherd of Myddvia. The story begins with a shepherd who wonders to the lake. Three maidens rose from the dark waters of the lake. He offered one of them bread, but she said it was too hard. The next day, he returned to the lake and brought bread. But she said it was too unbaked. So the third time he brought bread, she liked it. So she promised to become his wife if he could pick her out from among her sisters the following day. He married her and they had three children. But she said that if he struck her three times, she would leave him and go back to the lake. So over the course of time, he touched her three times in very mild ways, but she still left him. The only time she came back was to see her sons to bless them.

I really liked this story, but I did not like the ending. If I was going to rewrite it, I would definitely change the outcome. I think that I would make it to where she came back and took care of her sons. Or maybe that she did not make that promise with the man that she would leave if he touched her three times.

Lake, Web Source.

Bibliography:

The Shepherd of Myddvia from Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).