Butter : BUTTER I have been told: Butter, that's a thing that's very much meddled with. On the first of May before sunrise it's very apt to be all taken away out of the milk. And if ever you lend your churn or your dishes to your neighbour, she'll be able to wish away your butter after that There w...
Herbs, Charms And Wise Women : HERBS, CHARMS AND WISE WOMEN THERE is a saying in Irish, "An old woman without learning, it is she will be doing charms"; and I have told in "Poets and Dreamers" of old Bridget Ruane who came and gave me my first knowledge of the healing power of certain plants, some it seemed having a natural...
The Fighting Of The Friends : THE FIGHTING OF THE FRIENDS "ONE time on Hy, one Brito of Columcille's brotherhood was dying, and Columeille gave him his blessing but would not see him die, and went out into the little court of the house. And he had hardly gone out when the life went from Brito. And Columcille was out...
The Fool Of The Forth : THE FOOL OF THE FORTH WE had, before our quest began, heard of faeries and banshees and the walking dead; but neither Mr. Yeats in Sligo nor I in Galway had ever heard of "the worst of them all," the Fool of Forth, the Amadan-na-Briona, he whose stroke is, as death, incurable. As to the fool...
Title Page : VISIONS AND BELIEFS IN THE WEST OF IRELAND Collected And Arranged By LADY GREGORY [Lady Isabella Augusta Persse Gregory, 1859-1932] With Two Essays And Notes By W. B. YEATS G. P. Putman's Sons, New York And London, [1920] Scanned And Redacted By Phillip Brown. Additional Formatting By John B. Hare...
Blacksmiths : BLACKSMITHS I have been told: Yes, they say blacksmiths have something about them, and if there's a seventh blacksmith in succession, from generation to generation, he can do many things, and if he gave you his curse you wouldn't be the better of it. There was one near the cliffs, Pat Doherty, but...
Friars And Priest Cures : FRIARS AND PRIEST CURES AN old woman begging at the door one day spoke of the cures done in her early days by the Friars at Esker to the north of our county. I asked if she had ever been there, and she burst into this praise of it: "Esker is a grand place; this house and the house of Lough Cutr...
Witches And Wizards And Irish Folk Lore : WITCHES AND WIZARDS AND IRISH FOLK-LORE (W.B. YEATS) Ireland was not separated from general European speculation when much of that was concerned with the supernatural. Dr. Adam Clarke tells in his unfinished autobiography how) when he was at school in Antrim towards the end of the eighteenth...
Swedenborg, Mediums And The Desolate Places : SWEDENBORG, MEDIUMS AND THE DESOLATE PLACES (W.B. YEATS) Some fifteen years ago I was in bad health and could not work, and Lady Gregory brought me from cottage to cottage while she began to collect the stories in this book, and presently when I was at work again she went on with her collecti...
Preface : PREFACE The Sidhe cannot make themselves visible to all. They are shape-changers; they can grow small or grow large, they can take what shape they choose; they appear as men or women wearing clothes of many colours, of today or of some old forgotten fashion, or they are seen as bird or beast...
Notes : NOTES (W.B. YEATS) [Sea Stories] NOTE 1. THE FAERY PEOPLE. The first detailed account of the Faery People of the Gaelic race was made by the Reverend Robert Kirk in 1691. His book which remained in manuscript till it was discovered by Sir Walter Scott in 1815 was called "The Secret Commonwealth...
Banshees And Warnings : BANSHEES AND WARNINGS "THEN Cuchulain went on his way, and Cathbad that had followed him went with him. And presently they came to a ford, and there they saw a young girl thin and white-skinned and having yellow hair, washing and ever washing, and wringing out clothing that was stained crimson red...
In The Way : IN THE WAY AN old Athenry man who had been as a soldier all through the Indian Mutiny and had come back to end his days here as a farmer said to me in speaking of "The Others" and those who may be among them: "There's some places of their own we should never touch such as the forths; and if ever we...
Away : AWAY PWYLL, Prince of Dyved let loose the dogs in the wood and sounded the horn and began the chase. And as he followed the dogs he lost his companions; and while he listened to the hounds he heard the cry of other hounds, a cry different from his own, and coming in the opposite direction... And he...
Astray And Treasure : ASTRAY AND TREASURE MR. YEATS in his dedication of "The Shadowy Waters" says of some of our woods: "Dim Pairc-na-tarav where enchanted eyes Have seen immortal mild proud shadows walk; Dim Inchy wood that hides badger and fox And martin-cat, and borders that old wood Wise Biddy Early called...
Monsters And Sheoguey Beasts : MONSTERS AND SHEOGUEY BEASTS THE Dragon that was the monster of the early world now appears only in the traditional folktales, where the hero, a new Perseus, fights for the life of the Princess who looks on ciyjng at the brink of the sea, bound to a silver chair, while the Dragon is "put in a way...
Appearances : APPEARANCES WHEN I had begun my search for folk-lore, the first to tell me he himself had seen the Sidhe was an old, perhaps half-crazed man I will call Michael Barrett (for I do not give the real names either of those who are living or who have left living relatives). I had one day asked an old...
Sea Stories : SEA STORIES "The Celtic Twilight" was the first book of Mr. Yeats's that I read, and even before I met him, a little time later, I had begun looking for news of the invisible world; for his stories were of Sligo and I felt jealous for Galway. This beginning of know-ledge was a great excitement...
Seers And Healers : SEERS AND HEALERS In talking to the people I often heard the name of Biddy Early, and I began to gather many stories of her, some calling her a healer and some a witch. Some said she had died a long time ago, and some that she was still living. I was sure after a while that she was dead, but w...
The Evil Eye The Touch The Penalty : THE EVIL EYE--THE TOUCH--THE PENALTY "Some friendly Teydmena, sorry to see my suffering plight, said to me: 'This is because thou hast been eye-struck--what! you do not understand 'eye-struck'? Certainly they have looked in your eyes, Khalil. We have lookers (God cut them off!) among us, that with...
The Unquiet Dead : THE UNQUIET DEAD A GOOD many years ago when I was but beginning my study of the folk-lore of belief, I wrote somewhere that if by an impossible miracle every trace and memory of Christianity could be swept out of the world, it would not shake or destroy at all the belief of the people of Irel...
Forths And Sheoguey Places : FORTHS AND SHEOGUEY PLACES WHEN as children we ran up and down the green entrenchments of the big round raths, the lisses or forths, of Esserkelly or Moneen, we knew they had been made at one time for defence, and that is perhaps as much as is certainly known. Those at my old home have never been...
