The aim of the research is to provide a comprehensive linguocultural characteristic of a folk tale. The research is based on the material of the Irish Fairy and Folk Tales tale anthology, compiled and edited by W. B. Yeats. The research results allow for a suggestion that linguocultural markers are to be found on both ideologic-compositional and speech levels of a text. Thus, the motives of Christian morality form the basis for reciprocal altruism which is the conceptual entity of Irish folk tales. The tale structure is often linear and consists of a short introduction, the main part and the climax turning into a short sharp denouement. Irish folk tales are often a metaphor for the rite of passage. The didactic function of tales consists in demonstrating the possibilities of sin purge through their recognition and repentance. Tales also set social rules and norms. Culture-specific language units encountered in the texts of Irish folk tales belong to different levels of the English language system. The phonetic level reveals such features as metathesis, final consonant reduction, imitation of aspiration, alliteration, wordplay based on homophony, etc. They imitate a peculiar Irish accent and exert some vernacular effect. The lexical level is represented by culture-bound vocabulary including ethnographical terms, anthroponyms and geographical names, both real and invented, various kinds of borrowings from Irish Gaeilge,quotations etc. Some cultural features are exhibited in grammar and text rhythm, chiefly through the use of specific verb forms of Irish English as well as certain correlations of repetition-based rhythmic devices – polysyndeton, diacope, anaphora, epizeuxis, symploce etc. The study of linguocultural text markers gives a comprehensive idea of intra- and extralinguistic characteristics of the tale.