Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Fairy Tale Spotlight: Paddy Corcoran's Wife [Short Story Review]

[This blog spoils the entire story.]

"Paddy Corcoran's Wife" is a short Irish fairy tale written by William Carleton. It is a very quick read and gets straight to the point.

There is a woman named Kitty Corcoran who has been sickly on and off for 7 years. It comes and goes but is so frequent that it has pretty much uprooted her life. Nothing can be done about her.

One day, while she is sick in bed as usual, a woman walks in and claims to be one of the Good People (a fairy.) This fairy woman points out that the reason Kitty has been sick for no less than 7 years is because she had her children throw out the dirty water at the very two moments of the day that the Good People would normally pass by her house.

The fairy goes on to explain that if she doesn't want to be sick for the rest of her life, she will simply tell her children to toss out the water at different times so as to not drench the fairy people. Kitty does this, and lives a happy life thereafter.

Now consider: She had no idea that her actions were causing harm to the fairies, yet they still punished her for 7 long years before they even gave her an opportunity to right the problem. Kitty did not know her sickness was supernatural at all. It stands to reason that if they had come to her on the first year, she likely would have fixed the issue then and there.

Moral of the story: Fairies are petty assholes.

Good story though. I recommend it if only so you can see how horrible these creatures can be.

This blog was written on July 23, 2023.

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7 comments:

  1. VERY interesting. The fairies play by rules. They hold humans to the rules whether the humans know them or not. It makes sense in a strange way. The Good People are the children of the "gods," the forces of nature. Nature is a system of rules that punish or reward whether you know the rules or not.

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  2. Poor lady, she didn't know her family was causing the fairy folk distress and paid the price for it. To say that the fairies should pick a different time to walk by would be ignorant of the very nature of fairies. Good that she didn't pick a fight with them and actually resolved the problem.

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  3. Fairies curse severely for the slightest transgression, but they bless greatly for the smallest kindness. Be wary of their wrath should you have dealings with them. Do what you can to make things right.

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    1. They are extremists, for better AND worse. On that note: It is more dangerous to be loved by them than hated. They can be dangerously obsessive.

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    2. The question is... who is giving them the right to act like this?

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