No More Learning

Title: The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 5 (of 8)
The Celtic Twilight and Stories of Red Hanrahan

Author: William Butler Yeats

Release Date: August 5, 2015 [EBook #49612]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

[Illustration: _Emery Walker Ph. sc. _

_From a drawing by A. Mancini_]




THE CELTIC TWILIGHT AND
STORIES OF RED HANRAHAN
BEING THE FIFTH VOLUME OF
THE COLLECTED WORKS IN
VERSE & PROSE OF WILLIAM
BUTLER YEATS :: IMPRINTED
AT THE SHAKESPEARE HEAD
PRESS STRATFORD-ON-AVON
MCMVIII




CONTENTS


THE CELTIC TWILIGHT

PAGE
THIS BOOK 1

A TELLER OF TALES 3

BELIEF AND UNBELIEF 6

MORTAL HELP 9

A VISIONARY 11

VILLAGE GHOSTS 17

'DUST HATH CLOSED HELEN'S EYE' 27

A KNIGHT OF THE SHEEP 39

AN ENDURING HEART 44

THE SORCERERS 48

THE DEVIL 54

HAPPY AND UNHAPPY THEOLOGIANS 56

THE LAST GLEEMAN 63

REGINA, REGINA PIGMEORUM VENI 73

'AND FAIR, FIERCE WOMEN' 78

ENCHANTED WOODS 82

MIRACULOUS CREATURES 89

ARISTOTLE OF THE BOOKS 91

THE SWINE OF THE GODS 92

A VOICE 94

KIDNAPPERS 96

THE UNTIRING ONES 106

EARTH, FIRE AND WATER 110

THE OLD TOWN 112

THE MAN AND HIS BOOTS 115

A COWARD 117

THE THREE O'BYRNES AND THE EVIL FAERIES 119

DRUMCLIFF AND ROSSES 121

THE THICK SKULL OF THE FORTUNATE 131

THE RELIGION OF A SAILOR 134

CONCERNING THE NEARNESS TOGETHER OF HEAVEN,
EARTH, AND PURGATORY 136

THE EATERS OF PRECIOUS STONES 138

OUR LADY OF THE HILLS 140

THE GOLDEN AGE 144

A REMONSTRANCE WITH SCOTSMEN FOR HAVING SOURED
THE DISPOSITION OF THEIR GHOSTS AND
FAERIES 146

WAR 152

THE QUEEN AND THE FOOL 155

THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE OF FAERY 162

DREAMS THAT HAVE NO MORAL 172

BY THE ROADSIDE 190

'INTO THE TWILIGHT' 193


STORIES OF RED HANRAHAN:

RED HANRAHAN 197

THE TWISTING OF THE ROPE 213

HANRAHAN AND CATHLEEN THE DAUGHTER OF HOOLIHAN 225

RED HANRAHAN'S CURSE 231

HANRAHAN'S VISION 242

THE DEATH OF HANRAHAN 250




THE CELTIC TWILIGHT




_Time drops in decay
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
But, kindly old rout
Of the fire-born moods,
You pass not away. _




_THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE_


_The host is riding from Knocknarea,
And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;
Caolte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling, 'Away, come away;
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam,
Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart. '
The host is rushing 'twixt night and day;
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caolte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling, 'Away, come away. '_




THE CELTIC TWILIGHT




THIS BOOK


I

I HAVE desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the
beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy
world, and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any
of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have therefore
written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen,
and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.
I have, however, been at no pains to separate my own beliefs from those
of the peasantry, but have rather let my men and women, dhouls and
faeries, go their way unoffended or defended by any argument of mine.
The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull
them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can
weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. I too
have woven my garment like another, but I shall try to keep warm in
it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me.

Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has
built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out
their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved
daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a little.

1893.


II

I have added a few more chapters in the manner of the old ones, and
would have added others, but one loses, as one grows older, something
of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both
hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no
great loss perhaps. In these new chapters, as in the old ones, I have
invented nothing but my comments and one or two deceitful sentences
that may keep some poor story-teller's commerce with the devil and his
angels, or the like, from being known among his neighbours. I shall
publish in a little while a big book about the commonwealth of faery,
and shall try to make it systematical and learned enough to buy pardon
for this handful of dreams.

1902




A TELLER OF TALES


MANY of the tales in this book were told me by one Paddy Flynn, a
little bright-eyed old man, who lived in a leaky and one-roomed cabin
in the village of Ballisodare, which is, he was wont to say, 'the most
gentle'--whereby he meant faery--'place in the whole of County Sligo. '
Others hold it, however, but second to Drumcliff and Drumahair. The
first time I saw him he was cooking mushrooms for himself; the next
time he was asleep under a hedge, smiling in his sleep. He was indeed
always cheerful, though I thought I could see in his eyes (swift as
the eyes of a rabbit, when they peered out of their wrinkled holes) a
melancholy which was well-nigh a portion of their joy; the visionary
melancholy of purely instinctive natures and of all animals.

And yet there was much in his life to depress him, for in the triple
solitude of age, eccentricity, and deafness, he went about much
pestered by children. It was for this very reason perhaps that he ever
recommended mirth and hopefulness. He was fond, for instance, of
telling how Collumcille cheered up his mother.