Unit 5: Ireland

Photo of a dolmen taken from Ken Williams' site, Shadow and Stone

Blog prompts:

1) Write a personal response to each of the assigned fairytales (taken from Henry Glassie's Irish Folktales, (1985).

2) What do the tales tell you about the Irish view of space and time?

"Usheen's Return to Ireland": The last of the legendary Fenians, Usheen spends many years in Tir na nog, the land of eternal youth where the Tuatha De Danann had gone after departing mortal Ireland. When he desires to return to the mortal world, he is informed of the usual prohibition that safeguards his youth. In this case, he cannot let his feet touch the ground or the enchantment will end. Predictably, he cannot avoid touching the earth and the accumulated years overtake him.

The version of this tale in Glassie was collected by Lady Gregory. She provides a clue to anyone who would search for the location of the fairy realm: "But as to where Tir-Nan-Oge is, it is in every place, all about us."

In these Irish stories, we are given to understand that the realm of the other world co-exists with our own but it is not necessarily in the same space and time. We might say that it exists in a different dimension. It is, nonetheless, very real and tangible.

In the story "The Man Who Had No Story", a basketmaker named Brian encounters the fairy realm when he dares to go into an enchanted glen. Here, the fairy realm is the fictive realm - the land of story-tellers. He enters into the other world through his dreaming and, while he might start out knowing no fairytales or hero tales, he enters into these story realms and lives out his own adventures. At the end it is said that he never again cuts rods to weave baskets but I wonder if that is because he fears to return to the glen. Perhaps he has become a story-teller, now that he has some to tell!

The story of Usheen is part Fenian tale and part fairy tale. The story of "The Birth of Finn MacCumhail" is very much a Fenian tale (a sort of hero/tall tale), although there's plenty of magic, giants and a talking dog to keep things interesting! In this version, the legendary champion is not the only one who possesses extraordinary physical powers. Finn's grandmother also has them and she uses them to save her grandson.

As we've already seen, dreams are one of the portals through which the other realm can be encountered. The dream state is very real, in these folktales. The story "Dreams of Gold" is about this truth in dreams. Another tale collected by Lady Gregory, this one tells of several different cases of people dreaming of finding hidden treasure. In one, three men from Gort fail to find gold at a church because it is too well guarded. Another man finds a treasure trove at a crossroads but hides it when someone approaches, never to find it again.

A man from Mayo journeys to Limerick on such a quest.There, he encounters another dreamer, a cobbler, who has dreamt of finding gold in a different place altogether. From the cobbler's description, the man from Mayo realises that there's gold buried in his own garden and he never would have known about it if he hadn't learned of it from the peddler! And so, we learn that the gold is real and the dreams are true. But, do you have what it takes to get what you dream of? Do you have the nerve - the will to follow things through? What about luck?

In "The King of Ireland's Son", a young man receives the aid of a helpful spirit but the lad really makes his own luck, through a selfless act.

The king's son decides to travel to the East to find his ideal woman but, soon after he sets out on his quest, he comes upon the funeral of a poor man. The king's son gives half of what little money he has to settle the dead man's debts and let him be properly buried.

This act of kindness and selflessness is rewarded by the dead man. His spirit returns as a small, green man and it is in this guise that he aids his benefactor. Only after reaching the end of his quest does the king's son learn the true identity of the small, green man and his connection to him through that act of charity.

What unites these Irish folktales is the sense that there is a world besides the one we inhabit and that one can catch a glimpse of the other world at those places and moments where it intersects with our own.