The King of Ireland's Son

The wild son of the King of Ireland rejects his royal cage for something older and stranger: the roads of Irish legend, where enchanted cattle graze in impossible fields and every wager carries a price beyond measuring. When Connal wins two bets from a gray old man on a morning ride, he doesn't know he's tumbled into a tale older than kingdoms. The prize is a field of magical cattle. The greater prize is what comes after: Fedelma, the Enchanter's Daughter, won in a game of cards, then stolen by the King of the Land of Mist. What follows is a quest through an Ireland that exists only in the oldest stories, where heroes must face impossible trials and learn that courage alone isn't enough to win back what was taken. Colum gathered these tales from the firesides of a vanishing world and stitched them into something that feels like it was always waiting to be told. First published in 1916, during Ireland's own great turning, this book carries the strange, sad, funny weight of a nation's dreaming.