Margaret Killip

This book is for the hardcore folklorist rather than a person wanting to read the folktales themselves. I expected to be reading a book of folk tales from the Isle of Man. Instead, I got a book that analyzed and studied tales in the greater context of the culture of the island. For a person already familiar with these folk tales, this book would have been a wonderful study, but for a person such as I who was unfamiliar with the tales and the culture, it was a chore to read it. I did learn a little about the culture of the island in the process of reading it. I was surprised by the great influence that Charles Wesley and his followers exerted upon the island. Certainly many of the folk tales have roots in the island's pre-Christian days, but it was interesting to see how Christianity, specifically Methodism, sometimes inlfuenced the tales in later years.… (mais)