Release date is 2025-12-15

Charlene Taylor, Brian Wilsden and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. Music transcribed by esolar56. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

"The folk-lore of the Isle of Man" by A. W. Moore is a collection of folklore and antiquarian study written in the late 19th century. It gathers myths, legends, superstitions, customs, and proverbs of the Manx people, drawing on earlier collectors and oral tradition, with introductions and explanatory notes. The focus is the island’s mythic figures, seasonal rites, witchcraft and charms, life-cycle customs, old legal practices, and proverbial wisdom, aiming to preserve a rapidly fading Manx cultural memory.

The opening of the work explains how Manx folklore was long neglected or mishandled by outsiders and is now endangered by linguistic decline and modern change; it sketches traditional Manx life—sod-built cottages without chimneys, simple fare, homespun clothing, traveling tailors, winter storytelling, and deep-seated superstition—citing observers from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Moore defines folklore, lays out the book’s chapter plan, and then begins with Manannan Mac Lir, tracing his sea-god origins, later “humanized” portrayals, and ties to Irish and Welsh tradition, before noting his Manx reputation for raising mists, multiplying defenders, and striding the island on “three legs.” The early myths section briefly recounts Lug’s gear and steed from Manannan, Cúchulainn’s raid on the Isle of Falga and the treacheries around Bláthnat, Culann the smith and Conchobar’s shield with the sea-princess Teeval, a Manx poem of Finn and Oshin featuring the vengeful Orree, and the Norse tales of Sigurd and Loki carved on Manx stones. The next section turns to hagiological and mytho-historical legends: St. Patrick’s role in the island’s conversion, St. Maughold/Macaldus arriving bound and ultimately freed by a key found in a fish, his miraculous intervention against the raider GilColum, Donald’s escape from chains on Myrescogh Lake through divine aid, the Ballafletcher cross and its moral injunction, and the local tale of Goddard Crovan’s stone. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Douglas: Brown & Son, 1891