Country Irish people have a great belief in the faeire or shee...never ever are they referred to as 'the little people' because that is such an insult and you'd find your milk gone sour or your donkey turned lame.
The Faerie are believed to be the remnants of a tribe who sailed to Ireland long ago...travelling in glass ships and carrying with them many wonderful objects...which included a vast cauldron which never emptied, no matter how many people ate from it. These people were the Tuatha de Danaan...ancient warriors and wise men...great tellers of tales and fables.
They live now in underground caverns...vast places of marble and crystal... accessed by tiny entrances under a Hawthorn bush or in a ring fort.
Even now...in 2014... farmers will not cut down a Hawthorn in a field...in case of disturbing the shee...and entering a ring fort at night is simply asking to be faerie-struck...you'll be carried away into those underground palaces and fed with honey and the best of wines and you'll be bedazzled and befuddled. Especially when you wake in the morning lying on the damp grass and find one hundred years have passed by in a single night and your friends and family are no longer anywhere to be found...
The Faerie can often be spiteful...cutting off the horse's tail while he dozes in his stable and scattering the hair all over the farmyard...curdling the new milk and stopping the hens from laying...frightening the dog in the yard so he spends the dark hours howling at the moon...
They love human babies...they love their plump pink fingers and toes and their appealing faces with their rosy cheeks...their own babies are scrawny and horribly ugly and they wail in high pitched voices.
They'll steal human babies...steal them away and leave a scraggy mite dressed in nothing but a bit of rag in the cradle by the hearth. Sometimes they'll swop back...but you'll need to know a woman who can negotiate and they are hard come by...she'll take the faeire baby and leave it in a certain place known only to herself...and the faerie mother will bring back the human baby and take hers away. That doesn't often happen though...
Many of the old cottages are built on faerie paths...ours is said to be such a one. The front door and the back door are directly in line with one another so the faerie can walk through as they please without disturbing the humans.
There are literally thousands of stories about the Tuatha de Danaan...every older man or woman will have their own to tell and there have been books written and poems too and songs telling of their powers and their long voyage across the oceans in those beautiful glass boats.
I love tales of the Tuatha Danaan and the shee. You will no doubt know this poem by John Keats:
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
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Isn't that stunning...it still sends shivers down my spine to read it again...W.B. Yeats was also a believer in the Faerie...can't remember the title but it goes...'I went down to a Hazelwood because a fire was in my head...I cut and peeled a Hazel wand and hooked a berry on a thread...
The little fish he caught became 'a glimmering girl with apple blossom round her head'
Thank you very much for reminding me about the Keats poem...
I have a book of Celtic myths and legends, not just Irish, but Welsh and Scottish too. I also have a large book full of paintings of various myths and legends. Scandinavian, Celtic, Greek and Roman. One of my favourite paintings is of the Tuatha de Danaan arriving in England on horseback.
One of my favourite stories is about Rhiannon and Pwyll (Welsh obviously) which sort of inspired this poem of mine.
I do believe that because of our poor health we appreciate the written English word more than most. A far cry from so called 'text talk.'
Nice thread. Thank you.
Thank you. One of my favourite poets is Alfred Lord Tennyson. I love the imagery and mysticism of his work. The Lady of Shallott and Marianna and Idylls of the King are very atmospheric.
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