Thomas Keightley (historian)
| Thomas Keightley | |
|---|---|
| Born | Thomas Keightley 17 October 1789 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 4 November 1872 (aged 83) Belvedere, London (Lesness Heath, Kent), England |
| Resting place | Erith Churchyard |
| Occupation | writer, folklorist, mythographer, historian |
| Nationality | British / Irish |
| Notable works | Fairy Mythology |
Thomas Keightley (17 October 1789 – 4 November 1872) was an Irish writer known for his works on mythology and folklore, particularly Fairy Mythology (1828), reprinted as The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People (1880, 1978, 2000, etc.). Regarded as a pioneer in the study of Folklore by modern scholars in the field, he was one of the "early and important comparativist collectors" of folklore. A circumspect scholar, he did not deem that similar tales recognizable across countries automatically signified transmission, but allowed that similar tales could arise independently in different cultures.
At the request of the educator Thomas Arnold, he authored a series of textbooks on English, Greek, and other histories, which were adopted at Arnold's Rugby School as well as other public schools.
Keightley, born in October 1789, was the son of Thomas Keightley of Newtown, co. Kildare, and claimed to be related to Thomas Keightley (1650?–1719). He entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 4 July 1803, but left without a degree, and due to poor health he was forced to abandon the pursuit of the legal profession and admission to the Irish Bar.
In 1824 he settled in London, and engaged in literary and journalistic work. Keightley is known to have contributed tales to Thomas Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends of South Ireland (1825), though not properly acknowledged. It turned out that he submitted at least one tale ("The Soul Cages") almost entirely of his own fabrication unbeknown to Croker and others.
Having spent time in Italy, he was capable of producing translations of tales from Pentamerone or The Nights of Straparola in Fairy Mythology, and he struck up a friendship with the patriarch of the Rossetti household. Thomas claimed to be literate in twenty-odd languages and dialects in all, and published a number of translations and digests of medieval and foreign works and passages, often sparsely treated elsewhere in the English language, including the expanded prose versions of Ogier the Dane which conveys the hero to Morgan le Fay's Fairyland, or Swedish ballads on nixes and elves, such as Harpans kraft ("Power of the Harp") and Herr Olof och älvorna ("Sir Olof in Elve-Dance").
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