Perhaps the Gaelic people shall
by his like bring back again the ancient simplicity and amplitude of
imagination.
by his like bring back again the ancient simplicity and amplitude of
imagination.
Yeats
'Worse,' replied the mother.
'May you be worse
to-morrow,' said the saint. The next day Collumcille came again, and
exactly the same conversation took place, but the third day the mother
said, 'Better, thank God. ' And the saint replied, 'May you be better
to-morrow. ' He was fond too of telling how the Judge smiles at the last
day alike when he rewards the good and condemns the lost to unceasing
flames. He had many strange sights to keep him cheerful or to make him
sad. I asked him had he ever seen the faeries, and got the reply, 'Am
I not annoyed with them? ' I asked too if he had ever seen the banshee.
'I have seen it,' he said, 'down there by the water, batting the river
with its hands. '
I have copied this account of Paddy Flynn, with a few verbal
alterations, from a note-book which I almost filled with his tales
and sayings, shortly after seeing him. I look now at the note-book
regretfully, for the blank pages at the end will never be filled
up. Paddy Flynn is dead; a friend of mine gave him a large bottle
of whiskey, and though a sober man at most times, the sight of so
much liquor filled him with a great enthusiasm, and he lived upon
it for some days and then died. His body, worn out with old age and
hard times, could not bear the drink as in his young days. He was a
great teller of tales, and unlike our common romancers, knew how to
empty heaven, hell, and purgatory, faeryland and earth, to people his
stories. He did not live in a shrunken world, but knew of no less ample
circumstance than did Homer himself.
Perhaps the Gaelic people shall
by his like bring back again the ancient simplicity and amplitude of
imagination. What is literature but the expression of moods by the
vehicle of symbol and incident? And are there not moods which need
heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland for their expression, no less
than this dilapidated earth? Nay, are there not moods which shall
find no expression unless there be men who dare to mix heaven, hell,
purgatory, and faeryland together, or even to set the heads of beasts
to the bodies of men, or to thrust the souls of men into the heart of
rocks? Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey
the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is
true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.
BELIEF AND UNBELIEF
THERE are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told
me last Christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in
ghosts. Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest
to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to
go 'trapsin about the earth' at their own free will; 'but there are
faeries,' she added, 'and little leprechauns, and water-horses and
fallen angels. ' I have met also a man with a Mohawk Indian tattooed
upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter
what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the
Mohawk Indian on his arm said to me, 'they stand to reason. ' Even the
official mind does not escape this faith.
A little girl who was at service in the village of Grange, close
under the seaward slopes of Ben Bulben, suddenly disappeared one
night about three years ago. There was at once great excitement in
the neighbourhood, because it was rumoured that the faeries had taken
her. A villager was said to have long struggled to hold her from
them, but at last they prevailed, and he found nothing in his hands
but a broomstick. The local constable was applied to, and he at once
instituted a house-to-house search, and at the same time advised the
people to burn all the _bucalauns_ (ragweed) on the field she vanished
from, because _bucalauns_ are sacred to the faeries.
to-morrow,' said the saint. The next day Collumcille came again, and
exactly the same conversation took place, but the third day the mother
said, 'Better, thank God. ' And the saint replied, 'May you be better
to-morrow. ' He was fond too of telling how the Judge smiles at the last
day alike when he rewards the good and condemns the lost to unceasing
flames. He had many strange sights to keep him cheerful or to make him
sad. I asked him had he ever seen the faeries, and got the reply, 'Am
I not annoyed with them? ' I asked too if he had ever seen the banshee.
'I have seen it,' he said, 'down there by the water, batting the river
with its hands. '
I have copied this account of Paddy Flynn, with a few verbal
alterations, from a note-book which I almost filled with his tales
and sayings, shortly after seeing him. I look now at the note-book
regretfully, for the blank pages at the end will never be filled
up. Paddy Flynn is dead; a friend of mine gave him a large bottle
of whiskey, and though a sober man at most times, the sight of so
much liquor filled him with a great enthusiasm, and he lived upon
it for some days and then died. His body, worn out with old age and
hard times, could not bear the drink as in his young days. He was a
great teller of tales, and unlike our common romancers, knew how to
empty heaven, hell, and purgatory, faeryland and earth, to people his
stories. He did not live in a shrunken world, but knew of no less ample
circumstance than did Homer himself.
Perhaps the Gaelic people shall
by his like bring back again the ancient simplicity and amplitude of
imagination. What is literature but the expression of moods by the
vehicle of symbol and incident? And are there not moods which need
heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland for their expression, no less
than this dilapidated earth? Nay, are there not moods which shall
find no expression unless there be men who dare to mix heaven, hell,
purgatory, and faeryland together, or even to set the heads of beasts
to the bodies of men, or to thrust the souls of men into the heart of
rocks? Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey
the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is
true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.
BELIEF AND UNBELIEF
THERE are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told
me last Christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in
ghosts. Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest
to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to
go 'trapsin about the earth' at their own free will; 'but there are
faeries,' she added, 'and little leprechauns, and water-horses and
fallen angels. ' I have met also a man with a Mohawk Indian tattooed
upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter
what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the
Mohawk Indian on his arm said to me, 'they stand to reason. ' Even the
official mind does not escape this faith.
A little girl who was at service in the village of Grange, close
under the seaward slopes of Ben Bulben, suddenly disappeared one
night about three years ago. There was at once great excitement in
the neighbourhood, because it was rumoured that the faeries had taken
her. A villager was said to have long struggled to hold her from
them, but at last they prevailed, and he found nothing in his hands
but a broomstick. The local constable was applied to, and he at once
instituted a house-to-house search, and at the same time advised the
people to burn all the _bucalauns_ (ragweed) on the field she vanished
from, because _bucalauns_ are sacred to the faeries.
