Trivium Home School · Language Games
Gods who came in clouds, a queen who became a crow, swans who sang for nine hundred years, and heroes who held a ford alone: the old stories of Ireland, retold with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria, with grammar at every level and a gamebook for each tale.
For the folk tales, see W. B. Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888).
An introduction to the four great cycles of Irish mythology, and where the stories come from.
Part 1 B1–B2 · FREE
The Mythological, Ulster, Fenian and Kings cycles, the monks who wrote them down, and Yeats.
The gods of Ireland, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the peoples who came before and after them.
Part 2 B1 · PREMIUM
The shining people, the silver hand, and Lugh against Balor of the Evil Eye.
Part 3 B2 · PREMIUM
The Great Queen of war and prophecy, the crow over the battlefield.
Part 4 A2–B1 · PREMIUM
Four children turned into swans for nine hundred years.
The heroic age of Ulster, King Conchobar, Queen Medb, and the greatest warrior of all.
Part 5 B1–B2 · PREMIUM
The boy who killed a hound, became the Hound of Culann, and chose glory over a long life.
Part 6 B2–C1 · PREMIUM
Queen Medb, the Brown Bull of Cooley, one hero at the ford, and the death of Ferdiad.
Fionn mac Cumhaill, the Fianna, their hunts, their loves and their sorrows.
Part 7 A2–B1 · PREMIUM
How the boy Fionn burned his thumb and gained all the wisdom of the world.
Part 8 B1 · PREMIUM
A road across the sea, a Scottish giant, a very large baby, and the real geology.
Part 9 B2 · PREMIUM
A king’s daughter, a sacred oath, sixteen years on the run, and the water that slipped through Fionn’s fingers.
Part 10 B1–B2 · PREMIUM
Oisín rides west to the Land of the Young, and comes home three hundred years too late.
Kings half real and half legend, from Niall of the Nine Hostages to mad Suibhne among the birds.
Part 11 B2 · PREMIUM
Niall and the old woman at the well, Cormac the wise, and mad King Suibhne among the birds.
The fairy people under the hills, from the stories collected by Yeats and others.
Part 12 B1 · PREMIUM
The woman of the fairy mound whose cry is heard before a death, and the real tradition of keening.
Part 13 A2–B1 · PREMIUM
The shape-shifter of the November nights, and why you mustn’t eat blackberries after Samhain.
Part 14 B2 · PREMIUM
The dark chieftain who would not stay in his grave, and the Dracula question.
Part 15 C1 · PREMIUM
The night when the doors to the Otherworld stood open: Fionn and Aillén the burner, Nera in the fairy mound.
Part 16 B1–B2 · PREMIUM
The May fires, Saint Patrick on the Hill of Slane, and the superstitions of May Eve.
Part 17 A2–B1 · PREMIUM
The little shoemaker, his crock of gold, and the Field of Boliauns.