Mongan's Frenzy

Mongan was once a king whose name rang through the five kingdoms of Ireland. Now he wanders the hills with a company of ghosts, a diminished thing, haunted by the memory of his own greatness. When the fairy folk beckon him downward into their luminous, lawless realm, he goes seeking restoration. What he finds instead is something older and stranger than glory: the frenzy that drives men to cross the boundary between what is known and what should never be spoken aloud. James Stephens retells this ancient Irish legend with the verve of a madman recounting a dream. The prose moves like something possessed, darting between beauty and absurdity, fairy malice and mortal longing. This is not gentle mythology for children. This is the wild Ireland of thorns and transformations, where the sidhe laugh at human ambition and sanity is merely another country one can be expelled from. Stephens brings sarcasm and savage humor to the task, making the old tale feel urgently contemporary. It zips along in under two hours, but you'll be thinking about Mongan's descent long after the last page.