An old
man who was cutting a quickset hedge near Gort, in Galway, said, only
the other day, 'One time I was cutting timber over in Inchy, and about
eight o'clock one morning, when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts,
with her hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had
a good, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and
her dress no way gaudy, but simple.
man who was cutting a quickset hedge near Gort, in Galway, said, only
the other day, 'One time I was cutting timber over in Inchy, and about
eight o'clock one morning, when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts,
with her hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had
a good, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and
her dress no way gaudy, but simple.
Yeats
Men are charming
and without a blot there, and love is not forbidden there. O woman,
when you come into my powerful country you will wear a crown of gold
upon your head. I will give you the flesh of swine, and you will have
beer and milk to drink, O beautiful woman. O beautiful woman, come with
me! '
THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS (p. 11).
The Tuatha De Danaan can take all shapes, and those that are in the
waters take often the shape of fish. A woman of Burren, in Galway,
says, 'There are more of them in the sea than on the land, and they
sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of fishes,
for they can take their choice shape. ' At other times they are
beautiful women; and another Galway woman says, 'Surely those things
are in the sea as well as on land. My father was out fishing one night
off Tyrone. And something came beside the boat that had eyes shining
like candles. And then a wave came in, and a storm rose all in a
minute, and whatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink
the boat. And then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the
shining eyes. So my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to
take a drop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him,
and nothing could harm him. '
The poem was suggested to me by a Greek folk song; but the folk belief
of Greece is very like that of Ireland, and I certainly thought, when
I wrote it, of Ireland, and of the spirits that are in Ireland.
An old
man who was cutting a quickset hedge near Gort, in Galway, said, only
the other day, 'One time I was cutting timber over in Inchy, and about
eight o'clock one morning, when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts,
with her hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had
a good, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and
her dress no way gaudy, but simple. And when she felt me coming she
gathered herself up, and was gone, as if the earth had swallowed her
up. And I followed her, and looked for her, but I never could see her
again from that day to this, never again. '
The county Galway people use the word 'clean' in its old sense of fresh
and comely.
HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED,
AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (p. 15).
My deer and hound are properly related to the deer and hound that
flicker in and out of the various tellings of the Arthurian legends,
leading different knights upon adventures, and to the hounds and to the
hornless deer at the beginning of, I think, all tellings of Oisin's
journey to the country of the young. The hound is certainly related
to the Hounds of Annwvyn or of Hades, who are white, and have red
ears, and were heard, and are, perhaps, still heard by Welsh peasants,
following some flying thing in the night winds; and is probably related
to the hounds that Irish country people believe will awake and seize
the souls of the dead if you lament them too loudly or too soon. An
old woman told a friend and myself that she saw what she thought were
white birds, flying over an enchanted place; but found, when she got
near, that they had dogs' heads, and I do not doubt that my hound and
these dog-headed birds are of the same family. I got my hound and deer
out of a last century Gaelic poem about Oisin's journey to the country
of the young. After the hunting of the hornless deer, that leads him
to the seashore, and while he is riding over the sea with Niamh, he
sees amid the waters--I have not the Gaelic poem by me, and describe it
from memory--a young man following a girl who has a golden apple, and
afterwards a hound with one red ear following a deer with no horns.
This hound and this deer seem plain images of the desire of man 'which
is for the woman,' and 'the desire of the woman which is for the desire
of the man,' and of all desires that are as these. I have read them
in this way in 'The Wanderings of Usheen' or Oisin, and have made my
lover sigh because he has seen in their faces 'the immortal desire of
immortals. '
The man in my poem who has a hazel wand may have been Aengus, Master of
Love; and I have made the boar without bristles come out of the West,
because the place of sunset was in Ireland, as in other countries, a
place of symbolic darkness and death.
THE CAP AND BELLS (p. 22).
and without a blot there, and love is not forbidden there. O woman,
when you come into my powerful country you will wear a crown of gold
upon your head. I will give you the flesh of swine, and you will have
beer and milk to drink, O beautiful woman. O beautiful woman, come with
me! '
THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS (p. 11).
The Tuatha De Danaan can take all shapes, and those that are in the
waters take often the shape of fish. A woman of Burren, in Galway,
says, 'There are more of them in the sea than on the land, and they
sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of fishes,
for they can take their choice shape. ' At other times they are
beautiful women; and another Galway woman says, 'Surely those things
are in the sea as well as on land. My father was out fishing one night
off Tyrone. And something came beside the boat that had eyes shining
like candles. And then a wave came in, and a storm rose all in a
minute, and whatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink
the boat. And then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the
shining eyes. So my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to
take a drop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him,
and nothing could harm him. '
The poem was suggested to me by a Greek folk song; but the folk belief
of Greece is very like that of Ireland, and I certainly thought, when
I wrote it, of Ireland, and of the spirits that are in Ireland.
An old
man who was cutting a quickset hedge near Gort, in Galway, said, only
the other day, 'One time I was cutting timber over in Inchy, and about
eight o'clock one morning, when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts,
with her hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had
a good, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and
her dress no way gaudy, but simple. And when she felt me coming she
gathered herself up, and was gone, as if the earth had swallowed her
up. And I followed her, and looked for her, but I never could see her
again from that day to this, never again. '
The county Galway people use the word 'clean' in its old sense of fresh
and comely.
HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED,
AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (p. 15).
My deer and hound are properly related to the deer and hound that
flicker in and out of the various tellings of the Arthurian legends,
leading different knights upon adventures, and to the hounds and to the
hornless deer at the beginning of, I think, all tellings of Oisin's
journey to the country of the young. The hound is certainly related
to the Hounds of Annwvyn or of Hades, who are white, and have red
ears, and were heard, and are, perhaps, still heard by Welsh peasants,
following some flying thing in the night winds; and is probably related
to the hounds that Irish country people believe will awake and seize
the souls of the dead if you lament them too loudly or too soon. An
old woman told a friend and myself that she saw what she thought were
white birds, flying over an enchanted place; but found, when she got
near, that they had dogs' heads, and I do not doubt that my hound and
these dog-headed birds are of the same family. I got my hound and deer
out of a last century Gaelic poem about Oisin's journey to the country
of the young. After the hunting of the hornless deer, that leads him
to the seashore, and while he is riding over the sea with Niamh, he
sees amid the waters--I have not the Gaelic poem by me, and describe it
from memory--a young man following a girl who has a golden apple, and
afterwards a hound with one red ear following a deer with no horns.
This hound and this deer seem plain images of the desire of man 'which
is for the woman,' and 'the desire of the woman which is for the desire
of the man,' and of all desires that are as these. I have read them
in this way in 'The Wanderings of Usheen' or Oisin, and have made my
lover sigh because he has seen in their faces 'the immortal desire of
immortals. '
The man in my poem who has a hazel wand may have been Aengus, Master of
Love; and I have made the boar without bristles come out of the West,
because the place of sunset was in Ireland, as in other countries, a
place of symbolic darkness and death.
THE CAP AND BELLS (p. 22).
