The Wind Among the ReedsYeats, W. B. (William Butler)
General
The Wind Among the Reeds
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
English poetry -- Irish authors
I have founded the man 'who drove the gods out of their Liss,' or fort,
upon something I have read about Caolte after the battle of Gabra, when
almost all his companions were killed, driving the gods out of their
Liss, either at Osraighe, now Ossory, or at Eas Ruaidh, now Asseroe, a
waterfall at Ballyshannon, where Ilbreac, one of the children of the
goddess Danu, had a Liss. I am writing away from most of my books, and
have not been able to find the passage; but I certainly read it
somewhere.
I have founded 'the proud dreaming king' upon Fergus, the son of Roigh,
the legendary poet of 'the quest of the bull of Cualge,' as he is in the
ancient story of Deirdre, and in modern poems by Ferguson. He married
Nessa, and Ferguson makes him tell how she took him 'captive in a single
look.'
'I am but an empty shade,
Far from life and passion laid;
Yet does sweet remembrance thrill
All my shadowy being still.'
Presently, because of his great love, he gave up his throne to
Conchobar, her son by another, and lived out his days feasting, and
fighting, and hunting. His promise never to refuse a feast from a
certain comrade, and the mischief that came by his promise, and the
vengeance he took afterwards, are a principal theme of the poets. I
have explained my imagination of him in 'Fergus and the Druid,' and in a
little song in the second act of 'The Countess Kathleen.'
* * * * *
I have founded him 'who sold tillage, and house, and goods,' upon
something in 'The Red Pony,' a folk tale in Mr. Larminie's 'West Irish
Folk Tales.' A young man 'saw a light before him on the high road. When
he came as far, there was an open box on the road, and a light coming up
out of it. He took up the box. There was a lock of hair in it. Presently
he had to go to become the servant of a king for his living. There were
eleven boys. When they were going out into the stable at ten o'clock,
each of them took a light but he. He took no candle at all with him.
Each of them went into his own stable. When he went into his stable he
opened the box. He left it in a hole in the wall. The light was great.
It was twice as much as in the other stables.' The king hears of it, and
makes him show him the box. The king says, 'You must go and bring me the
woman to whom the hair belongs.' In the end, the young man, and not the
king, marries the woman.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Wind Among the Reeds, by William Butler Yeats
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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