Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (1920). By: Lady Gregory, and By: W. B. Yeats: With two esays and notes By: William Butler Yeats ( 13 June

By Lady Augusta Gregory

Book Overview

This material collected over a period of more than twenty years proved to be a valuable source not only for Gregory's own plays but also for Yeats' work. A classic, it presents many aspects of the supernatural seers, healers, charms, banshees, forths, the evil eye and contains a treasure trove of Irish folk-beliefs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.. Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory ( 15 March 1852 - 22 May 1932) was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of stories taken from Irish mythology. Born into a class that identified closely with British rule, her conversion to cultural nationalism, as evidenced by her writings, was emblematic of many of the political struggles to occur in Ireland during her lifetime. Lady Gregory is mainly remembered for her work behind the Irish Literary Revival. Her home at Coole Park, County Galway, served as an important meeting place for leading Revival figures, and her early work as a member of the board of the Abbey was at least as important for the theatre's development as her creative writings. Lady Gregory's motto was taken from Aristotle: "To think like a wise man, but to express oneself like the common people." Early life and marriage: Gregory was born at Roxborough, County Galway, the youngest daughter of the Anglo-Irish gentry family Persse. Her mother, Frances Barry, was related to Viscount Guillamore, and her family home, Roxborough, was a 6,000-acre (24 km ) estate located between Gort and Loughrea, the main house of which was later burnt down during the Irish Civil War. She was educated at home, and her future career was strongly influenced by the family nurse (i.e. nanny), Mary Sheridan, a Catholic and a native Irish speaker, who introduced the young Augusta to the history and legends of the local area. She married Sir William Henry Gregory, a widower with an estate at Coole Park, near Gort, on 4 March 1880 in St Matthias' Church, Dublin. Sir William, who was 35 years her elder, had just retired from his position as Governor of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), having previously served several terms as Member of Parliament for County Galway. He was a well-educated man with many literary and artistic interests, and the house at Coole Park housed a large library and extensive art collection, both of which Lady Gregory was eager to explore. He also had a house in London, where the couple spent a considerable amount of time, holding weekly salons frequented by many leading literary and artistic figures of the day, including Robert Browning, Lord Tennyson, John Everett Millais and Henry James. Their only child, Robert Gregory, was born in 1881. He was killed during the First World War, while serving as a pilot, an event which inspired Yeats's poems "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory," and "Shepherd and Goatherd.". William Butler Yeats ( 13 June 1865 - 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others....

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1546828664
• ISBN13: 9781546828662
• Release Date: May 2017
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 118 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

"All Around Us, As Thick As The Grass"

A rustic, wonderfully no-frills collection of anecdotes and 'stories-heard' concerning fairy beliefs and fairy doings gathered at the turn of the 20th Century by Lady Augusta Gregory (with the assistance of William Butler Yeats), Visions & Beliefs In The West Of Ireland (1920) will appeal directly to students of folklore, fairylore, anthropology, psychology, and religion. It will also be of interest to the casual reader, who may be surprised to learn how prevalent the belief in fairies was in rural areas of the British Isles, and how seriously this belief was taken; and not two or three hundred years ago, but a hundred years ago. Though far less common today, the fairy faith still thrives throughout the world, as several articles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal recently made clear. Charming and colorful without being in the least sentimental, Visions & Beliefs In The West of Ireland is required reading for anyone seriously interested in the supernatural or Irish cultural history. The fairies described here vary in appearance, but in most cases are more akin to the image of the Christian angel than to the 'flower fairy' or garden gnome of modern popular imagination. Never winged, only sometimes small or short, and often the size of an average man or larger, the beings observed in these recountings (or perceived but unseen "all around us, as thick as the grass," as one man says) steal milk, kidnap babies, haunt roads, wells, and shorelines, prefer human women to act as midwives for their newborns, and require human participation to play their games and fight their wars. Who or what is the Fool of the Fort? Why May and June are the most dangerous months of the year? How does one free one's self from enchantment if pixie-led? What happens on May Day's Eve? How does one recognize a fairy doctor? Are babies perceived as changelings in fact sick or deformed children? This volume addresses these questions and a hundred more. As a vision-based collection of folklore, and of fact as the rural people perceived it, this book deserves the highest praise for its purity of style, method, and intention. The more imagination the reader has, the more the book, with its incredible descriptions, will expand in mind and memory.