{"product_id":"irish-fairy-and-folk-tales-isbn-9780812968552","title":"Irish Fairy and Folk Tales","description":"Gathered by the renowned Irish poet, playwright, and essayist William Butler Yeats, the sixty-five tales and poems in this delightful collection uniquely capture the rich heritage of the Celtic imagination. Filled with legends of village ghosts, fairies, demons, witches, priests, and saints, these stories evoke both tender pathos and lighthearted mirth and embody what Yeats describes as “the very voice of the people, the very pulse of life.”  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The impact of these tales doesn’t stop with Yeats, or Joyce, or Oscar Wilde,” writes Paul Muldoon in his Foreword, “for generations of readers in Ireland and throughout the world have found them flourishing like those persistent fairy thorns.”“These folk-tales are full of simplicity and musical occurrences, for they are the literature of a class...who have steeped everything in the heart: to whom everything is a symbol.”—William Butler Yeats\u003cb\u003ePaul Muldoon\u003c\/b\u003e is Oxford Professor of Poetry and Howard G. B. Clark Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. His recent works include \u003ci\u003eTo Ireland, I; Poems 1968–1998;\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMoy Sand and Gravel\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.THE TROOPING FAIRIES\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The Irish word for fairy is sheehogue [sidheóg], a diminutive of “shee” in banshee. Fairies are deenee shee [daoine sidhe] (fairy people).\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Who are they? “Fallen angels who were not good enough to be saved, nor bad enough to be lost,” say the peasantry. “The gods of the earth,” says the Book of Armagh. “The gods of pagan Ireland,” say the Irish antiquarians, “the Tuatha De Danān, who, when no longer worshipped and fed with offerings, dwindled away in the popular imagination, and now are only a few spans high.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And they will tell you, in proof, that the names of fairy chiefs are the names of old Danān heroes, and the places where they especially gather together, Danān burying-places, and that the Tuatha De Danān used also to be called the slooa-shee [sheagh sidhe] (the fairy host), or Marcra shee (the fairy cavalcade).\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e On the other hand, there is much evidence to prove them fallen angels. Witness the nature of the creatures, their caprice, their way of being good to the good and evil to the evil, having every charm but conscience—consistency. Beings so quickly offended that you must not speak much about them at all, and never call them anything but the “gentry,” or else daoine maithe, which in English means good people, yet so easily pleased, they will do their best to keep misfortune away from you, if you leave a little milk for them on the window-sill over night. On the whole, the popular belief tells us most about them, telling us how they fell, and yet were not lost, because their evil was wholly without malice.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Are they “the gods of the earth?” Perhaps! Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers, in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of the earth, who have no inherent form but change according to their whim, or the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing and being influenced by hoards. The visible world is merely their skin. In dreams we go among them, and play with them, and combat with them. They are, perhaps, human souls in the crucible—these creatures of whim.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Do not think the fairies are always little. Everything is capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or shape pleases them. Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and making love, and playing the most beautiful music. They have only one industrious person among them, the lepracaun—the shoemaker. Perhaps they wear their shoes out with dancing. Near the village of Ballisodare is a little woman who lived among them seven years. When she came home she had no toes—she had danced them off.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They have three great festivals in the year—May Eve, Midsummer Eve, November Eve. On May Eve, every seventh year, they fight all round, but mostly on the “Plain-a-Bawn” (wherever that is), for the harvest, for the best ears of grain belong to them. An old man told me he saw them fight once; they tore the thatch off a house in the midst of it all. Had anyone else been near they would merely have seen a great wind whirling everything into the air as it passed. When the wind makes the straws and leaves whirl as it passes, that is the fairies, and the peasantry take off their hats and say, “God bless them.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e On Midsummer Eve, when the bonfires are lighted on every hill in honor of St. John, the fairies are at their gayest, and sometimes steal away beautiful mortals to be their brides.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e On November Eve they are at their gloomiest, for, according to the old Gaelic reckoning, this is the first night of winter. This night they dance with the ghosts, and the pooka is abroad, and witches make their spells, and girls set a table with food in the name of the devil, that the fetch of their future lover may come through the window and eat of the food. After November Eve the blackberries are no longer wholesome, for the pooka has spoiled them.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When they are angry they paralyze men and cattle with their fairy darts.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When they are gay they sing. Many a poor girl has heard them, and pined away and died, for love of that singing. Plenty of the old beautiful tunes of Ireland are only their music, caught up by eavesdroppers. No wise peasant would hum “The Pretty Girl Milking the Cow” near a fairy rath, for they are jealous, and do not like to hear their songs on clumsy mortal lips. Carolan, the last of the Irish bards, slept on a rath, and ever after the fairy tunes ran in his head, and made him the great man he was.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Do they die? Blake saw a fairy’s funeral; but in Ireland we say they are immortal.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e THE FAIRIES\u003cbr\u003e WILLIAM ALLINGHAM\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Up the airy mountain,\u003cbr\u003e Down the rushy glen,\u003cbr\u003e We daren’t go a-hunting\u003cbr\u003e For fear of little men;\u003cbr\u003e Wee folk, good folk,\u003cbr\u003e Trooping all together;\u003cbr\u003e Green jacket, red cap,\u003cbr\u003e And white owl’s feather!\u003cbr\u003e Down along the rocky shore\u003cbr\u003e Some make their home,\u003cbr\u003e They live on crispy pancakes\u003cbr\u003e Of yellow tide-foam;\u003cbr\u003e Some in the reeds\u003cbr\u003e Of the black mountain lake,\u003cbr\u003e With frogs for their watch-dogs\u003cbr\u003e All night awake.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e High on the hill-top\u003cbr\u003e The old King sits;\u003cbr\u003e He is now so old and gray\u003cbr\u003e He’s nigh lost his wits.\u003cbr\u003e With a bridge of white mist\u003cbr\u003e Columbkill he crosses,\u003cbr\u003e On his stately journeys\u003cbr\u003e From Slieveleague to Rosses;\u003cbr\u003e Or going up with music\u003cbr\u003e On cold starry nights,\u003cbr\u003e To sup with the Queen\u003cbr\u003e Of the gay Northern Lights.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They stole little Bridget\u003cbr\u003e For seven years long;\u003cbr\u003e When she came down again\u003cbr\u003e Her friends were all gone.\u003cbr\u003e They took her lightly back,\u003cbr\u003e Between the night and morrow,\u003cbr\u003e They thought that she was fast asleep,\u003cbr\u003e But she was dead with sorrow.\u003cbr\u003e They have kept her ever since\u003cbr\u003e Deep within the lake,\u003cbr\u003e On a bed of flag-leaves,\u003cbr\u003e Watching till she wake.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e By the craggy hill-side,\u003cbr\u003e Through the mosses bare,\u003cbr\u003e They have planted thorn-trees\u003cbr\u003e For pleasure here and there.\u003cbr\u003e Is any man so daring\u003cbr\u003e As dig them up in spite,\u003cbr\u003e He shall find their sharpest thorns\u003cbr\u003e In his bed at night.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Up the airy mountain,\u003cbr\u003e Down the rushy glen,\u003cbr\u003e We daren’t go a-hunting\u003cbr\u003e For fear of little men;\u003cbr\u003e Wee folk, good folk,\u003cbr\u003e Trooping all together;\u003cbr\u003e Green jacket, red cap,\u003cbr\u003e And white owl’s feather!\u003cbr\u003e  Foreword by Paul Muldoon [quote]--William Butler Yeats","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302480269541,"sku":"NP9780812968552","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812968552.jpg?v=1767730175","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/irish-fairy-and-folk-tales-isbn-9780812968552","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}