William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 - 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, and writer, widely regarded as one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th century. He was educated in Dublin and spent his childhood summers in county Sligo. A driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, he was a founding member of the Abbey Theatre and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923.

Although he's best known for his poetry, which touched on themes of mysticism, Irish mythology, and national identity, Yeats also published several collections of mythology and folklore.