A podcast about the book The Celtic Twilight can be accessed above. Transcript with light editing below.
Podcast about W.B. Yeats’s book The Celtic Twilight, a work that explores Irish folklore and mythology. Yeats, a prominent Irish poet, sought to capture the essence of Irish cultural beliefs and traditions, particularly those related to the supernatural. He does this through a mixture of personal experiences, folk tales recounted by the peasantry, and his own reflections on belief and disbelief. The excerpts provide a glimpse into the world of fairies, ghosts, and sorcerers, showcasing Yeats’s fascination with the mystical and his desire to preserve the rich tapestry of Irish folklore. The text also reveals Yeats’s own evolving perspective on the nature of belief and the power of imagination, reflecting his own journey as an artist. By blending factual accounts with personal commentary, Yeats creates a captivating tapestry of folklore, mythology, and personal exploration.
[Tammy]
Welcome in. Today we’re stepping into a world where, well, reality gets a little fuzzy. A place of fairies and ancient magic, the Celtic twilight.
And to guide us through this, we’ve got excerpts from W.B. Yeats’ book, a captivating blend of folklore, personal experiences, you know, all about those beliefs surrounding Irish fairies.
[Joe]
And it’s fascinating, isn’t it, how Yeats approaches this whole thing. He’s not saying, hey, this is all gospel truth. He’s more like laying out these threads of belief, you know, letting us kind of weave our own understanding from these magical stories.
[Tammy]
It’s like he gives us a map, but it’s to a world we can’t quite see. He just says, get out there and explore. It’s really remarkable how ingrained these beliefs were in Irish life, even for people who might be skeptical about other supernatural stuff.
Like these stories, they were everywhere woven into the very fabric of their life.
[Joe]
Exactly. And, you know, these weren’t your typical garden variety fairies, either. These beings were very much a part of the human world, reliant on it, even.
You know that story about the fairy hurling match, right?
[Tammy]
Oh, yeah, yeah.
[Joe]
It couldn’t even happen without a human on each side, you know, to give them substance, like literally grounding their power. Wild, huh?
[Tammy]
Makes you think, doesn’t it? What does that even say about how we interact with, you know, the unseen world? This whole idea that maybe, just maybe, we have a bigger impact than we realize.
[Joe]
It’s a two-way street, right?
[Tammy]
Oh, for sure. Like that story about the farmer, right? The workaholic, so focused on his work, he walks right through a fairy hurling match without even realizing, and poof, just like that, it vanishes.
[Joe]
Oh, wow. Imagine being that tuned out, you know?
[Tammy]
Yeah.
[Joe]
You just completely disrupt something beyond your perception.
[Tammy]
Yeah.
[Joe]
Totally unintentional, but still, you know?
[Tammy]
Yeah.
[Joe]
It highlights how much our actions, even the little things we do without thinking, can rivel out into the fairy realm. Connect, you know?
[Tammy]
Yeah.
[Joe]
We’re all connected.
[Tammy]
Seriously.
[Joe]
It makes you wonder what else we might be missing in our own lives, right? You get so caught up in the day-to-day, you forget to look for the magic shimmering, just out of sight. But back to the Celtic twilight.
I mean, Yeats doesn’t just paint these fairies as, you know, all sunshine and rainbows. There’s a darker side to them, too.
[Tammy]
A place where beauty and, well, terror kind of, they sort of hold hands.
[Joe]
Yeah. It’s like you wander into the woods, you know, and the sunlight through the trees. It’s beautiful, but there’s this feeling deep down like something’s watching you.
[Tammy]
Right. You get that little shiver.
[Joe]
Yeah. And Yeats really gets into this idea of what he calls the three worlds, right? So you’ve got Earth, where, you know, we hang out.
Then there’s fairy, this whole magical realm. But then on top of that, there’s the other world, which is like, well, it’s heaven and hell all wrapped up together. And the thing is, it’s not just some ancient myth.
You know, as far as Yeats is concerned, it’s still very much a part of how people in Ireland understand the world. This idea that those three worlds, they’re not so far apart after all. And you can see how this whole vision, it really impacted their lives, their stories.
Like, take that story of the Galway man who claimed he had seen hell and purgatory.
[Tammy]
Oh, yeah, yeah. And it wasn’t like he was some wild-eyed mystic or something. Yeats describes him as completely down to earth, just matter-of-factly sharing these experiences.
[Joe]
It’s just another Tuesday. Even when he’s describing this terrifying encounter with a demon, there’s this amazing mix of belief, but also like practicality. You know, he’s not freaking out.
He’s just like, yep, this is the thing that exists, and here’s how you deal with it.
[Tammy]
It’s so different from how we tend to think about things today. It wasn’t a story to him. It was just life, you know?
And then you have that amazing contrast with the story of the old woman who talks to fairies like they’re, I don’t know, like they’re just her neighbors or something. She even gives advice about them, right?
[Joe]
Totally.
[Tammy]
Like, be good to them, and good things will come your way, especially for, you know, people who are struggling.
[Joe]
It makes you wonder, right? You’ve got these two totally different experiences, and they both fit within this world of belief. It’s like the fairy realm; well, it’s got just as much variety as our world, I guess.
You get good encounters, bad encounters.
[Tammy]
And some that are just downright terrifying. Yeats certainly doesn’t shy away from that. I mean, those stories about fairy kidnapping—they’re pretty creepy.
[Joe]
Primal, isn’t it?
[Tammy]
Yeah.
[Joe]
That fear of being taken, of losing yourself to something beyond your control. That story about the woman who danced away her toes, oh, man.
[Tammy]
Oh, yeah.
[Joe]
She gets so swept up in this fairy revel, the music, and everything that she loses herself completely. It’s only afterwards that she realizes what it cost her.
[Tammy]
It’s like a reminder that sometimes those really alluring, enchanting experiences have a hidden price tag attached.
[Joe]
Definitely.
[Tammy]
And then there’s that story about Heart Lake, which, let’s be real, that’s not a place you’d want to go swimming.
[Joe]
No, not at all.
[Tammy]
And when people tried to drain the lake, they were met with these, like, these terrifying visions of their homes going up in flames.
[Joe]
Of a powerful message. Like, don’t mess with what you don’t understand. The Half-Dug Trench, it’s like this warning sign.
And it kind of makes you think about our own lives, you know? Like, are we so caught up in things that we’re crossing lines we don’t even see what’s lurking just beneath the surface, right?
[Tammy]
It’s like time works differently there. In the fairy realm, stretches out, you know, or speeds up. Lifetimes, they’re like, like sparks.
Burning bright, then gone. And that’s where those stories really get you. Like that one about Mary Hines, a woman so beautiful, it was practically otherworldly.
[Joe]
Imagine that. Beauty so powerful it could stop you in your tracks. People say her skin was like snow, hair like spun silver.
And wherever she went, this music, the music of the seed, it followed her.
[Tammy]
Haunting. But beautiful, you know? Though like a lot of things with fairies, there’s that darkness woven in.
The stories say men were so captivated by her, so desperate to possess that beauty, they’d risk their lives just to be near her. And some, well, some met pretty tragic ends because of it.
[Joe]
It’s almost like a warning, right? That kind of beauty, the kind attributed to the fairy realm, it can be dangerous. Alluring, yeah.
But with a dark side. Wonder and tragedy all mixed up together.
[Tammy]
And that whole thing, timelessness versus, well, not being timeless, beauty that’s here and gone, it comes up a lot with Yeats. Like that story about the woman who gets 1,400 years, a gift from the fairies.
[Joe]
Oh, right. Seven husbands, each one a fairy prince, each marriage lasting centuries. Can you imagine all those experiences packed into one life?
[Tammy]
You’d think someone with that kind of time, they’d get bored. Or, I don’t know, cynical or something. But the way it ends, it’s kind of sad, actually.
[Joe]
It is.
[Tammy]
Her life, this incredible gift, it’s tied to a burning log, buried deep in the earth. And when that log finally burns out, poof, she’s gone too.
[Joe]
Even with all that magic, all that time, there’s still an end. It’s bittersweet. Makes me think of that idea Yeats talks about, the imperishable rose of beauty.
[Tammy]
Sounds like something out of a dream. How do you interpret that?
[Joe]
Well, on one hand, it’s like this connection to something that lasts forever. This perfect, timeless beauty that exists in the fairy realm while everything else fades. But then there’s still that acknowledgement that even with all that, nothing truly lasts forever.
So maybe, just maybe, it’s knowing that beauty fades which makes it so powerful in the first place.
[Tammy]
Makes you want to pay attention right to those little moments, the beauty we find in our own lives, even though it doesn’t last. And speaking of paying attention, I mean, Yeats wasn’t just collecting these stories. You know, he had his own brushes with, well, whatever you want to call it.
And a lot of times they had that same kind of dreamlike quality.
[Joe]
Oh, definitely. Like that time he and his friends saw those weird lights, this moving flame. And it’s like, none of them could quite believe it was real, even as it was happening.
And then the next day, more weird stuff, unexplained sounds, like whatever they walked into, it lingered, you know?
[Tammy]
And that story about the old man who kept seeing fairies, right? Some folks believed him, others thought he was, well, not all there. It really shows you how much our own perspective shapes what we consider real.
Something incredible can happen and it’s easy to dismiss it, just because it doesn’t fit in our neat little box of what we think the world is.
[Joe]
Exactly. It’s a challenge, right? Keeping your mind open.
Admitting there might be more out there than we can see or explain with science. Which brings us to those figures Yeats talks about. The Queen and the Fool.
Powerful figures in fairy lore.
[Tammy]
Yeah, the Queen, that makes sense, right? A figure of wisdom, intuition. But the Fool, that’s where things get interesting.
[Joe]
Right. The Amadonebrina, also known as the Fool of the Fourth. He’s this walking contradiction.
Yeah, he’s powerful, but his touch is supposed to cause madness. And there’s this absurdity to him, like that story with a boy who sees a lamb with a beard. And he just knows instantly that’s the Amadon.
Because what else could it be? He disrupts everything we think we know.
[Tammy]
That mix of absurdity and genuine power. It’s like he embodies the whole unpredictable nature of the fairy realm. You never know what you’re going to get.
[Joe]
It’s true. But here’s the thing. Yeats suggests that maybe by embracing that foolishness, that willingness to let go of logic and reason, maybe that’s how we actually get a different kind of wisdom.
A glimpse behind the curtain of the fairy realm.
[Tammy]
So you’re saying sometimes you got to let go of logic to really understand.
[Joe]
Sometimes, yeah. We get so caught up in trying to explain everything, we forget to just experience it.
[Tammy]
I like that. Reminds me of that story about the man playing the fiddle on the train. The one Yeats said sounded like a lament for the golden age.
That time when everything was perfect. We all long for that, I think, even if it’s just a story.
[Joe]
A lost enchantment. And it’s interesting how Yeats compares Irish fairy lore to Scottish stories. The Irish tales, even with all the dark stuff, there’s often this playfulness to them.
Maybe it’s a way of holding on to that sense of wonder, refusing to let go of the magic, even when things get scary.
[Tammy]
So as we wrap up this deep dive into the Celtic twilight, what would you say is the most important thing to take away from all this? Yeats’ explorations, these stories about a world we can’t quite see.
[Joe]
Well, for me, it’s the reminder that even in this day and age where everything’s got to be logical, scientific, there’s still room for a little wonder. Whether you believe these stories literally or just as metaphors, they speak to something deep inside us. They tell us to be open to the unknown, to find the magic in the everyday, to never quite lose that childlike sense of wonder.
That’s what makes life an adventure in the Celtic twilight.
[Tammy]
Beautifully put. To you listening, maybe take a moment today to look for that magic. The way the light hits the leaves, the sound of wind chimes.
Maybe a chance encounter that just feels a little bit infanted. Let the spirit of the Celtic twilight be your reminder. The world’s a much more wondrous place than we often give it credit for.
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