Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series

Seven Short Plays Folk-History Plays, 2 vols. New Comedies The Image The Golden Apple Our Irish Theatre. A Chapter of Autobiography
Visions and Beliefs, 2 vols. Cuchulain of Muirthemne Gods and Fighting Men Saints and Wonders Poets and Dreamers The Kiltartan Poetry Book

Ballylee Castle From a sepia drawing by Robert Gregory

There's no doubt at all but that there's the same sort of things in other countries; but you hear more about them in these parts because the Irish do be more familiar in talking of them.




There is a saying in Irish, An old woman without learning, it is she will be doing charms ; and I have told in Poets and Dreamers of old Bridget Ruane who came and gave me my first knowledge of the healing power of certain plants, some it seemed having a natural and some a mysterious power. And I said that she had died last winter, and we may be sure that among the green herbs that cover her grave there are some that are good for every bone in the body and that are very good for a sore heart.
As to the book she told me of that had come from the unseen and was written in Irish, I think of Mrs. Sheridan's answer when I asked in what language the strange unearthly people she had been among had talked: Irish of course—what else would they talk? And I remember also that when Blake told Crabb Robinson of the intercourse he had had with Voltaire and was asked in what tongue Voltaire spoke he said, To my sensations it was English. It was like the touch of a musical key. He touched it probably in French, but to my ear it became English.