Irish playwright J.M. Synge created influential but misunderstood representations of travellers or 'tinkers'. This work traces the history of the 'tinker' back to medieval Irish historiography and English Renaissance literature and forward to contemporary US screen depictions.

Gypsy Folk-Tales by Francis Hindes Groome, first published in 1899, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

Helleiner's study documents anti-Traveller racism in Ireland and explores the ongoing realities of Traveller life as well as the production and reproduction of contemporary Traveller collective identity and culture.

The Travelling People of Scotland are the traditionally nomadic minority group known also by the derogatory term tinkers. Traveling in groups or in their individual caravans along the high roads and byways of Scotland, they have established a distinct identity and mode of life for themselves that preserves centuries-old cultural beliefs. For their skill as storytellers, as well as ballad singers, they are internationally recognized for the richest storytelling traditions of the world. One of their best-known storytellers is Duncan Williamson. He was fascinated by storytelling from an early age and dedicated himself to keeping the wisdom of traveller culture by learning as many stories as possible. While this book focuses on a number of individuals, both Duncan's skill as a storyteller and his extensive knowledge of traveller storytelling traditions are prominently featured through a series of performance transcriptions and interview excerpts. Although their oral tales have been compiled and collected in other volumes, this book is the only full-length study that analyzes the stories of the Travelling People. Through an examination of their words, narratives, and songs, it brings readers close to Travellers' own voices and to their distinctive practice of storytelling. Indeed, this analytical appreciation of the culture shows how the story performances preserve the history of the Travelling People and reveal the shape and substance of the storytellers' own lives. It renders too the rich variety of stories, the interrelationship of stories and the community, the construction of the teller's identity within the story, and the story's way of understanding and shaping human experience. Although concentrated on these Scottish storytellers, this book imparts insights into the process of storytelling in general and contributes understanding of the place of stories in human communities and to human identity. Donald Braid, assistant director of the Center for Citizenship and Community and a lecturer in English at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, is a co-editor of A Folklorist's Progress: Reflections of a Scholar's Life. His work has been published in the Journal of American Folklore, Text and Performance Quarterly, and The Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature.

This volume explores the discourses and representations that have circumvented the image that is the Traveller, the Roma (Gypsy) and migrant “Other”. It is generally acknowledged that the globalisation and mass-media dissemination which characterise the current era have overseen a range of complex socio-cultural forces, many of which have blurred the once-reified borders of the post-Enlightenment, “modern”, nation-state. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of cultural diasporas and “traditionally”- nomadic groups such as Travellers, Roma and other migrant cultures. This book points to the ongoing reconfiguration of once-dominant cultural narratives and explores the manner whereby aspects of the migrant experience are themselves echoed in the increasingly hybrid and diverse discourses that characterise Western countries of the present-day.