A friend of mine met a man once who had been with him when he died,
but the people say that he died alone, and one Maurteen Gillane told
Dr.
but the people say that he died alone, and one Maurteen Gillane told
Dr.
Yeats
"' An old man who lives
by the sea at Duras has as little doubt that she was taken, 'for there
are some living yet can remember her coming to the pattern[C] there
beyond, and she was said to be the handsomest girl in Ireland. ' She
died young because the gods loved her, for the Sidhe are the gods, and
it may be that the old saying, which we forget to understand literally,
meant her manner of death in old times. These poor countrymen and
countrywomen in their beliefs, and in their emotions, are many years
nearer to that old Greek world, that set beauty beside the fountain
of things, than are our men of learning. She 'had seen too much of
the world'; but these old men and women, when they tell of her, blame
another and not her, and though they can be hard, they grow gentle as
the old men of Troy grew gentle when Helen passed by on the walls.
The poet who helped her to so much fame has himself a great fame
throughout the west of Ireland. Some think that Raftery was half blind,
and say, 'I saw Raftery, a dark man, but he had sight enough to see
her,' or the like, but some think he was wholly blind, as he may have
been at the end of his life. Fable makes all things perfect in their
kind, and her blind people must never look on the world and the sun. I
asked a man I met one day, when I was looking for a pool _na mna Sidhe_
where women of faery have been seen, how Raftery could have admired
Mary Hynes so much if he had been altogether blind? He said, 'I think
Raftery was altogether blind, but those that are blind have a way of
seeing things, and have the power to know more, and to feel more,
and to do more, and to guess more than those that have their sight,
and a certain wit and a certain wisdom is given to them. ' Everybody,
indeed, will tell you that he was very wise, for was he not only blind
but a poet? The weaver whose words about Mary Hynes I have already
given, says, 'His poetry was the gift of the Almighty, for there are
three things that are the gift of the Almighty--poetry and dancing and
principles. That is why in the old times an ignorant man coming down
from the hillside would be better behaved and have better learning than
a man with education you'd meet now, for they got it from God'; and a
man at Coole says, 'When he put his finger to one part of his head,
everything would come to him as if it was written in a book'; and an
old pensioner at Kiltartan says, 'He was standing under a bush one
time, and he talked to it, and it answered him back in Irish. Some say
it was the bush that spoke, but it must have been an enchanted voice in
it, and it gave him the knowledge of all the things of the world. The
bush withered up afterwards, and it is to be seen on the roadside now
between this and Rahasine. ' There is a poem of his about a bush, which
I have never seen, and it may have come out of the cauldron of fable in
this shape.
A friend of mine met a man once who had been with him when he died,
but the people say that he died alone, and one Maurteen Gillane told
Dr. Hyde that all night long a light was seen streaming up to heaven
from the roof of the house where he lay, and 'that was the angels who
were with him'; and all night long there was a great light in the
hovel, 'and that was the angels who were waking him. They gave that
honour to him because he was so good a poet, and sang such religious
songs. ' It may be that in a few years Fable, who changes mortalities
to immortalities in her cauldron, will have changed Mary Hynes
and Raftery to perfect symbols of the sorrow of beauty and of the
magnificence and penury of dreams.
1900.
II
When I was in a northern town awhile ago I had a long talk with a man
who had lived in a neighbouring country district when he was a boy. He
told me that when a very beautiful girl was born in a family that had
not been noted for good looks, her beauty was thought to have come from
the Sidhe, and to bring misfortune with it. He went over the names of
several beautiful girls that he had known, and said that beauty had
never brought happiness to anybody. It was a thing, he said, to be
proud of and afraid of. I wish I had written out his words at the time,
for they were more picturesque than my memory of them.
1902.
FOOTNOTE:
[C] A 'pattern,' or 'patron,' is a festival in honour of a saint.
A KNIGHT OF THE SHEEP
AWAY to the north of Ben Bulben and Cope's mountain lives 'a strong
farmer,' a knight of the sheep they would have called him in the Gaelic
days. Proud of his descent from one of the most fighting clans of the
Middle Ages, he is a man of force alike in his words and in his deeds.
There is but one man that swears like him, and this man lives far away
upon the mountain. 'Father in heaven, what have I done to deserve
this?
by the sea at Duras has as little doubt that she was taken, 'for there
are some living yet can remember her coming to the pattern[C] there
beyond, and she was said to be the handsomest girl in Ireland. ' She
died young because the gods loved her, for the Sidhe are the gods, and
it may be that the old saying, which we forget to understand literally,
meant her manner of death in old times. These poor countrymen and
countrywomen in their beliefs, and in their emotions, are many years
nearer to that old Greek world, that set beauty beside the fountain
of things, than are our men of learning. She 'had seen too much of
the world'; but these old men and women, when they tell of her, blame
another and not her, and though they can be hard, they grow gentle as
the old men of Troy grew gentle when Helen passed by on the walls.
The poet who helped her to so much fame has himself a great fame
throughout the west of Ireland. Some think that Raftery was half blind,
and say, 'I saw Raftery, a dark man, but he had sight enough to see
her,' or the like, but some think he was wholly blind, as he may have
been at the end of his life. Fable makes all things perfect in their
kind, and her blind people must never look on the world and the sun. I
asked a man I met one day, when I was looking for a pool _na mna Sidhe_
where women of faery have been seen, how Raftery could have admired
Mary Hynes so much if he had been altogether blind? He said, 'I think
Raftery was altogether blind, but those that are blind have a way of
seeing things, and have the power to know more, and to feel more,
and to do more, and to guess more than those that have their sight,
and a certain wit and a certain wisdom is given to them. ' Everybody,
indeed, will tell you that he was very wise, for was he not only blind
but a poet? The weaver whose words about Mary Hynes I have already
given, says, 'His poetry was the gift of the Almighty, for there are
three things that are the gift of the Almighty--poetry and dancing and
principles. That is why in the old times an ignorant man coming down
from the hillside would be better behaved and have better learning than
a man with education you'd meet now, for they got it from God'; and a
man at Coole says, 'When he put his finger to one part of his head,
everything would come to him as if it was written in a book'; and an
old pensioner at Kiltartan says, 'He was standing under a bush one
time, and he talked to it, and it answered him back in Irish. Some say
it was the bush that spoke, but it must have been an enchanted voice in
it, and it gave him the knowledge of all the things of the world. The
bush withered up afterwards, and it is to be seen on the roadside now
between this and Rahasine. ' There is a poem of his about a bush, which
I have never seen, and it may have come out of the cauldron of fable in
this shape.
A friend of mine met a man once who had been with him when he died,
but the people say that he died alone, and one Maurteen Gillane told
Dr. Hyde that all night long a light was seen streaming up to heaven
from the roof of the house where he lay, and 'that was the angels who
were with him'; and all night long there was a great light in the
hovel, 'and that was the angels who were waking him. They gave that
honour to him because he was so good a poet, and sang such religious
songs. ' It may be that in a few years Fable, who changes mortalities
to immortalities in her cauldron, will have changed Mary Hynes
and Raftery to perfect symbols of the sorrow of beauty and of the
magnificence and penury of dreams.
1900.
II
When I was in a northern town awhile ago I had a long talk with a man
who had lived in a neighbouring country district when he was a boy. He
told me that when a very beautiful girl was born in a family that had
not been noted for good looks, her beauty was thought to have come from
the Sidhe, and to bring misfortune with it. He went over the names of
several beautiful girls that he had known, and said that beauty had
never brought happiness to anybody. It was a thing, he said, to be
proud of and afraid of. I wish I had written out his words at the time,
for they were more picturesque than my memory of them.
1902.
FOOTNOTE:
[C] A 'pattern,' or 'patron,' is a festival in honour of a saint.
A KNIGHT OF THE SHEEP
AWAY to the north of Ben Bulben and Cope's mountain lives 'a strong
farmer,' a knight of the sheep they would have called him in the Gaelic
days. Proud of his descent from one of the most fighting clans of the
Middle Ages, he is a man of force alike in his words and in his deeds.
There is but one man that swears like him, and this man lives far away
upon the mountain. 'Father in heaven, what have I done to deserve
this?
