Peig Sayers, 'the Queen of Gaelic story-tellers', spent the greater part of her long life on the Great Blasket Island. She was a natural orator, and students and scholars of the Irish language came from far and wide to visit her. In this book, as an old lady, she muses and reflects on the days of her youth, recounting tales which evoke characters and an era now dead, and capture the superstitions and hard life of her beloved island.
Storytelling kept alive the myths, legends, and history of the Blasket Islands. In her old age, Peig Sayers, `the Queen of Gaelic storytellers', recounted her life to her son, who recorded the tale in this book. She recalls the events of her life and her simple philosophy in a moving poetic style. Such everyday tasks as collecting turf for roots, catching and eating seals, and preparing for a wake are depicted alongside such momentous events as drownings at sea, pilgrimages, and
the spread of the news of the Easter uprising in 1916. There were `clouds of sorrow', but helping them to lift them was the friendship she found in the community, which `was like a little rose in the wilderness'.
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