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APPENDIXES Appendix 1 Notes by Yeats (and / or Douglas Hyde) to items other than Yeats's introduction and headnotes, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, ed. W. B. Yeats (1888) pp. 38, 131n, 150, ISDn, 160n, 161n, 168n, 207n, 213n, 220-2nn, 295n, 299 (probably written by Douglas Hyde), 309n (revised by Yeats), 320-1, 323-6. See the textual introduction, pp. 318-19 below, for a list of exclusions. Sir Samuel Ferguson [note (p.320) to 'The Fairy Well of Lagnanay' (pp. 13-16) and 'The Fairy Thorn' (pp. 38-40)]. Many in Ireland consider Sir Samuel Ferguson their greatest poet. The English reader will most likely never have heard his name, for Anglo-Irish critics, who have found English audience, being more Anglo than Irish, have been content to follow English opinion instead of leading it, in all matters concerning Ireland. [Endnote (p. 38) to Samuel Lover, 'The White Trout; A Legend of Cong' (pp. 35-7).] [tThese trout stories are common all over Ireland. Many holy wells are haunted by such blessed trout. There is a trout in a well on the border of Lough Gill, Sligo, that some paganish person put once on the gridiron. It carries the marks to this day. Long ago, the saint who sanctified the well put that trout there. Nowadays it is only visible to the pious, who have done due penance.] Legend of Knockgrafton [note (pp. 32~1) to Thomas Crofton Croker, 'The Legend of Knockgrafton' (pp. 4~5)]. Moat does not mean a place with water, but a tumulus or barrow. The words La Luan Da Mort agus Da Dardeen are Gaelic for 'Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday too.' Da Hena is Thursday. Story-tellers, in telling this tale, says Croker, sing these words to the following music-according to Croker, music ofa very ancient kind l : ~I Da Lu - an, da Mort, da Lu - an da Mort t~~~~~'~~' ~ 194 Appendix 1 195 \ L. - ru>. da Mort ••• -gu, da D,,-dino. D. L. - ru>. do Mort. d. Lu - an, da Mort, da Lu - an, da Mort, au-gus da Dar - dine. Mr Douglas Hyde has heard the story in Connaught, with the song of the fairy given as 'Peean Peean daw feean, Peean go leh agus leffin' (pighin, pighin, da phighin, pighin go ieith agus Leith phighin)t, which in English means, 'a penny, a penny, twopence, a penny and a half, and a halfpenny.' Cusheen Loo [supplement (p. 320) to a headnote (p. 33) to 'Cusheen Loo', tr. from the Irish by J. J. Callanan). Forts, otherwise raths or royalties, are circular ditches enclosing a little field, where, in most cases, if you dig down you come to stone chambers, their bee-hive roofs and walls made of unmortared stone. In these little fields the ancient Celts fortified themselves and their cattle, in winter retreating into the stone chambers, where also they were buried. The people call them Dane's forts, from a misunderstanding of the word Danan {Tuath-de-Danan)t. The fairies have taken up their abode therein, guarding them from all disturbance. Whoever roots them up soon finds his cattle falling sick, or his family or himself. Near the raths are sometimes found flint arrow-heads; these are called 'fairy darts', and are supposed to have been flung by the fairies, when angry, at men or cattle. Stolen Child [note (p. 321) to W. B. Yeats, 'The Stolen Child' (pp. 59-60)]. The places mentioned are round about Sligo. Further Rosses is a very noted fairy locality. There is here a little point of rocks where, if anyone falls asleep, there is danger of their waking silly, the fairies having carried off their souls. [Footnote (p. 131) to the word 'farrel' in Letitia Maclintock, 'Grace Connor' (pp. 130-2).] When a large, round, flat griddle cake is divided into triangular cuts, each of these cuts is called a farrel, farli, or parli. [Endnote (p. 150) to Letitia Madintock, 'Bewitched Butter (Donegal)' (pp. 149-50).] [tThere is hardly a village in Ireland where the milk is not thus believed to 196 Appendixes have been stolen times upon times. There are many counter-charms. Sometimes the coulter of a plough will be heated red-hot, and the witch will rush in, crying out that she is burning. A new horse-shoe or donkey-shoe, heated and put under the churn, with three straws, if possible, stolen at midnight from over the witches' door, is quite infallible. - Ed.] [Footnote (p. 150) to the word 'Moiley's' in Letitia Maclintock, 'Bewitched Butter (Donegal)' (pp. 149-50).] In Connaught called a 'mweeal' cow - i.e., a cow without horns. Irish maol, literally, blunt. When the new hammerless breech-loaders came into use two or three years ago, Mr Douglas Hyde heard a Connaught gentleman speak of them as the 'mweeal' guns, because they had no cocks. [Footnote (p. 160) to the phrase 'a piece of horse-shoe nailed on the threshold' in 'Bewitched Butter (Queen's County)' (pp. I 5.'H>5) , from Dublin Univtrsiry Magazine, 1839.] It was once a common practice in Ireland to nail a piece of horse-shoe on the threshold of the door, as a preservative against the influence of the fairies, who, it is thought, dare not enter any house thus guarded. This custom, however, is much on the wane, but still it is prevalent in some of the more uncivilised districts of the country. [Footnote (p. 161) to the phrase 'an aged red-haired woman' in 'Bewitched Butter (Queen's County)' (pp. 15.'H>5), from Dublin Universiry Magazine, 1839.] Red-haired people are thought to possess magic power. [Footnote (p. 168) to the name 'Shemus Rua (Red James)' in Patrick Kennedy, 'The Witches' Excursion' (pp. 168-70).] Irish, Siumus Ruadh. The Celtic vocal organs are unable to pronounce the letter j, hence they make Shon or Shawn ofJohn, or Shamus ofJames, etc. [Footnote (p. 207) to the word 'ganconers' in 'Loughleagh (Lake of Healing), (pp. 206--11), from Dublin and London Magazine, 1825.] Ir. gtan-canach - i.e., love-talker, a kind of fairy appearing in lonesome valleys, a dudeen (tobacco-pipe) in his mouth, making love to milk-maids, etc. The Gonconer or Gancanagh [Gean-canachlt. [Note (pp.323-4) by Douglas Hyde to the word 'ganconers' (p. 207) in 'Loughleagh (Lake of Healing)" repro from Dublin and London Magazine, 1825. This note, although not by Yeats, is included because in 1891 Yeats used 'Ganconagh' as a Appendix 1 197 pseudonym in the publication of his novel and short story, john Sherman and Dhoya (1891); for Yeats's definition of the word, see p. 63 above.] O'Keamey, a Louthman, deeply versed in Irish lore, writes of the gean-canach (love-talker) that he is 'another diminutive being of the same tribe as the Lepracaun, but, unlike him, he personated love and idleness, and always appeared with a dudeen in his jaw in lonesome valleys, and it was his custom to make love to shepherdesses and milkmaids. It was considered very unlucky to meet him, and whoever was known to have ruined his fortune by devotion to the fair sex was said to have met a gean-canach. The dudeen, or ancient Irish tobacco pipe, found in our raths, etc., is still popularly called a gean-canach'st pipe.' The word is not to be found in dictionaries, nor does this spirit appear to be well known, ifknown at all, in Connacht. The word is pronounced ganconagh. In the MS. marked R. I. A. 23/E.13 in the Roy' Ir. Ac., there is a long poem describing such a fairy hurling-match as the one in the story, only the fairies described as the shiagh, or host, wore plaids and bonnets, like Highlanders. After the hurling the fairies have a hunt, in which the poet takes part, and they swept with great rapidity through halfIreland. The poem ends with the line- 'S gUT shiubhail me na wig cuig cuige's ganfum ache buachaUan buidhe; 'and I had travelled the five provinces with nothing under me but a yellow bohalawn (rag-weed),. [Note by Mr Douglas Hyde.] [Footnote (p. 213) to the author in Giraldus Cambrensis, 'The Phantom Isle' (p.213).] 'Giraldus Cambrensis' was born in 1146, and wrote a celebrated account of Ireland. [Glossary footnotes (p. 220) to the words shoneen (I. 3) and Sleiveens (I. 6) in w. B. Yeats, 'The Priest of Coloony' (pp. 220-1).] Shoneen - i.e., upstart. Sleiveen - i.e., mean fellow. [Footnote (p. 221) to W. B. Yeats, 'The Priest of Coloony' (pp. 220-1).] [tColoony is a few miles south of the town of Sligo. Father O'Hart lived there in the last century, and was greatly beloved. These lines accurately record the tradition. No one who has held the stolen land has prospered. It has changed owners many times.] Father John O'Hart [note (p. 324) to W. B. Yeats, 'The Priest of Coloony' (pp.220-1)]. Father O'Rorke is the priest of the parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvamet, 198 Appendixes and it is from his learnedly and faithfully and sympathetically written history of these parishes that I have taken the story of Father John, who had been priest of these parishes, dying in the year 1739. Coloony is a village in Kilvarnet. Some sayings of Father John's have come down. Once when he was sorrowing greatly for the death of his brother, the people said to him, 'Why do you sorrow so for your brother when you forbid us to keen?' 'Nature', he answered, 'forces me, but ye force nature'.