John Dickson Batten (8 October 1860 – 5 August 1932), born in Plymouth, Devon, was a British painter of figures in oils, tempera and fresco and a book illustrator and printmaker. He was an active member of the Society of Painters in Tempera, with his wife Mary Batten, a gilder.
In the 1890s, he illustrated a series of fairy tale books by Joseph Jacobs who was a member of the Folklore Society, notably English Fairy Tales (1890), Celtic Fairy Tales (1892 anthology), More Celtic Fairy Tales (1894) and More English Fairy Tales (1894).
Then they turned to fairy tales collected from continental Europe : Indian Fairy Tales (1912), European Folk and Fairy Tales (also known as Europa's Fairy Book) (1916). He also illustrated English versions of Tales from the Arabian Nights and Dante's Inferno.(Wikipedia)

Connla and the Fairy Maiden

Guleesh raised her up on the horse's back, and leaped up himself before her, and, "Rise, horse," said he; and his horse, and the other horses with him, went in a full race until they came to the sea.
"Hie over cap!" said every man of them.
"Hie over cap!" said Guleesh; and on the moment the horse rose under him, and cut a leap in the clouds, and came down in Erin.

He went home, and as tired as he was he did not sleep a wink until the sun rose on the morrow. He got up then, and it was the first thing he did to go out and search well through the grass round about the house, trying could he get any herb that he did not recognise. And, indeed, he was not long searching till he observed a large strange herb that was growing up just by the gable of the house.

Conall Yellowclaw

"Good-evening, Hudden; good-evening, Dudden. Ah! you thought you had played me a fine trick, but you never did me a better turn in all your lives. When I found poor Daisy dead, I thought to myself, 'Well, her hide may fetch something;' and it did. Hides are worth their weight in gold in the market just now."





Deirdre heard the voice and said to her foster-mother: "O foster-mother, what cry is that?""It is nothing at all, Deirdre—merely the birds of the air astray and seeking each other. But let them go past to the bosky glade. There is no shelter or house for them here."

"I will try another plan on them," said the druid; and he placed before them a grey sea instead of a green plain. The three heroes stripped and tied their clothes behind their heads, and Naois placed Deirdre on the top of his shoulder.


"Will you not put out," said Silver-tree, "your little finger through the keyhole, so that your own mother may give a kiss to it?"
She put out her little finger, and Silver-tree went and put a poisoned stab in it, and Gold-tree fell dead.

King O'Toole and His Goose

You see, the goose used to swim across the lake, and go diving for trout, and catch fish on a Friday for the king, and flew every other day round about the lake, diverting the poor king. All went on mighty well until, by dad, the goose got stricken in years like her master, and couldn't divert him no longer, and then it was that the poor king was lost entirely.

Well, my dear, it was a beautiful sight to see the king standing with his mouth open, looking at his poor old goose flying as light as a lark, and better than ever she was: and when she lit at his feet, patted her on the head, and "Ma vourneen,"says he, "but you are the darlint o' the world."

The Wooing of Olwen

"Raise up the forks beneath my two eyebrows which have fallen over my eyes," said Yspathaden Penkawr, "that I may see the fashion of my son-in-law."