About this book
Islands of Magic by Elsie Spicer Eells whisks listeners to the remote Azores, where fairies, sea legends, and hardy island lore shape everyday life. Drawing on her travels in December 1920 and January 1921, Eells collects vivid folktales from the nine Portuguese islands—Flores, Corvo, Faial, Pico, São Jorge, Graciosa, Terceira, São Miguel, and Santa Maria—preserving stories told on windswept shores and wooded slopes.
Part travelogue, part oral history, this Myths/Legends collection explores local beliefs in fairies of Monte Brasil and the haunted islets of Ilhéos de Cabras, fishermen’s tales of vanished continents like Atlantis, and the everyday customs that gave rise to them. Eells’s gentle narration captures dialect rhythms and island character without modernizing or fictionalizing the sources, making the book as much an ethnographic snapshot of the early 20th century as a treasury of enchantment.
Perfect for listeners who love folktales, cultural history, and atmospheric myth-making, Islands of Magic offers a doorway into a vanished world of wonder. Tune in for evocative storytelling, seaside mystery, and the enduring power of legends that shaped a far-flung Atlantic community.
