{"id":2705,"date":"2016-03-17T06:33:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T10:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/?p=2705"},"modified":"2016-12-15T23:25:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T04:25:06","slug":"cead-mile-failte-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/cead-mile-failte-2\/","title":{"rendered":"C\u00e9ad m\u00edle f\u00e1ilte"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fairyhouse\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A hundred thousand welcomes!<\/em>\u00a0That\u2019s the translation from the Gaelic of the title of today\u2019s chapter, a traditional Irish toast, quite proper for today, St. Patrick\u2019s Day. There will be a lot of toasting today, to be sure. St. Patrick is sacred to Ireland, and as they say, everyone is at least a little Irish on St. Patrick\u2019s Day. In this house, we\u2019ll be eating the traditional corned beef and cabbage and soda bread, though oysters or shepherd\u2019s pie or bangers and mash would be just as traditional. Take your pick. The day is widely celebrated with the wearing of the green and plenty of iconic imagery: shamrocks, harps, and shillelaghs, leprechauns and pots o\u2019gold.<\/p>\n

Patrick was a fourth century saint. He was born in Britain but was captured as a young man and taken to Ireland as a slave. He eventually escaped, made his way by sea to Gaul and became a priest there. He was made a bishop and soon after began to have visions suggesting he return to Ireland to spread the faith, which he did. One story tells of how he explained the Holy Trinity to the people of Ireland through the three leaves of the shamrock. He is most famous, however, for driving the snakes from Ireland. Whether it be by the hand of Patrick or not, there are to this day no snakes in Ireland, at least not in the wild. Some, however, think the story of Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland is more a metaphor for his driving the old Celtic gods and goddesses from the island, replacing the Old Ways with Christian beliefs.<\/p>\n

But Ireland is a place of mystery, and if the story of St. Patrick and the snakes is indeed about the Old Ways and not about snakes, then it\u2019s not true that they\u2019re completely driven away, for there are plenty of these old mysteries still at play there, and some of the most fascinating stories, I think, revolve around the fairy folk: the stuff of legend, and yet there are those who firmly believe in the stories and their power. And St. Patrick\u2019s Day, in particular, is a day that is best celebrated with stories and poems and songs of this place. So make your traditional Irish dinner, and pour some Jameson\u2019s or some Guinness or Harp. But be sure, too, there is fiddle music, and something to read or recite.<\/p>\n

Here in town tonight, over at St. Bernard\u2019s, in the rectory after his meal, Father Seamus will certainly be pouring a glass of something and reciting Yeats. He is a man\u00a0who loves to recite poetry to the congregation, and William Butler Yeats, the great poet of his long-ago homeland, is one of his favorites. Tonight, it could be any of his poems of Ireland. Seamus knows so many of them by heart, and perhaps tonight it will be this one:<\/p>\n

Where dips the rocky highland<\/em>
\nOf Sleuth Wood in the lake,<\/em>
\nThere lies a leafy island<\/em>
\nWhere flapping herons wake<\/em>
\nThe drowsy water rats;<\/em>
\nThere we\u2019ve hid our faery vats,<\/em>
\nFull of berrys<\/em>
\nAnd of reddest stolen cherries.<\/em>
\nCome away, O human child!<\/em>
\nTo the waters and the wild<\/em>
\nWith a faery, hand in hand,<\/em>
\nFor the world\u2019s more full of weeping than you can understand.<\/em><\/p>\n

Where the wave of moonlight glosses<\/em>
\nThe dim gray sands with light,<\/em>
\nFar off by furthest Rosses<\/em>
\nWe foot it all the night,<\/em>
\nWeaving olden dances<\/em>
\nMingling hands and mingling glances<\/em>
\nTill the moon has taken flight;<\/em>
\nTo and fro we leap<\/em>
\nAnd chase the frothy bubbles,<\/em>
\nWhile the world is full of troubles<\/em>
\nAnd anxious in its sleep.<\/em>
\nCome away, O human child!<\/em>
\nTo the waters and the wild<\/em>
\nWith a faery, hand in hand,<\/em>
\nFor the world\u2019s more full of weeping than you can understand.<\/em><\/p>\n

Where the wandering water gushes<\/em>
\nFrom the hills above Glen-Car,<\/em>
\nIn pools among the rushes<\/em>
\nThat scarce could bathe a star,<\/em>
\nWe seek for slumbering trout<\/em>
\nAnd whispering in their ears<\/em>
\nGive them unquiet dreams;<\/em>
\nLeaning softly out<\/em>
\nFrom ferns that drop their tears<\/em>
\nOver the young streams.<\/em>
\nCome away, O human child!<\/em>
\nTo the waters and the wild<\/em>
\nWith a faery, hand in hand,<\/em>
\nFor the world\u2019s more full of weeping than you can understand.<\/em><\/p>\n

Away with us he\u2019s going,<\/em>
\nThe solemn-eyed:<\/em>
\nHe\u2019ll hear no more the lowing<\/em>
\nOf the calves on the warm hillside<\/em>
\nOr the kettle on the hob<\/em>
\nSing peace into his breast,<\/em>
\nOr see the brown mice bob<\/em>
\nRound and round the oatmeal chest.<\/em>
\nFor he comes, the human child,<\/em>
\nTo the waters and the wild<\/em>
\nWith a faery, hand in hand,<\/em>
\nFor the world\u2019s more full of weeping than he can understand.<\/em><\/p>\n

The poem is \u201cThe Stolen Child.\u201d Father Seamus loves it because it reminds him so intensely of the home he left behind when he crossed the western ocean and came to America. And as much as he loves it here, Ireland is always in his heart, and the world, he knows, is indeed full of weeping. St. Patrick\u2019s Day is bittersweet for Seamus. Fairy folk are fewer and farther between here, and sometimes he feels a bit himself like a stolen child, removed from his homeland. But tonight, Seamus gets to celebrate that place. We all do, because we\u2019re all Irish on St. Patrick\u2019s Day.\u00a0C\u00e9ad m\u00edle f\u00e1ilte!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This chapter of the Convivio Book of Days is a re-worked version of one published originally for St. Patrick’s Day, 2014. The image then and the image today is of a fairy house I stumbled upon at the base of a tree in a woods in Maine some years ago. Certainly some fairy folk exist there, too. Good to know.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hundred thousand welcomes!\u00a0That\u2019s the translation from the Gaelic of the title of today\u2019s chapter, a traditional Irish toast, quite proper for today, St. Patrick\u2019s Day. There will be a lot of toasting today, to be sure. St. Patrick is sacred to Ireland, and as they say, everyone is at least a little Irish on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[68],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3869,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions\/3869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}