Irish Tales and Legends

All magic fades, magical beings lose their power, and deities retire. But not in the sacred Ireland, where the spirit of the pragmatic age barely wafts, while the marvelous still feel at ease, rewarding the good and annoying the wicked. Ladies and gentlemen in formal attire, in red hats and green cloaks, barely distinguishable among the grass and flowers, ride in cavalcades and dance in the night burial grounds, teaching wayward youngsters common sense, and here and there they might abduct a human child, leaving a bewitched log in the cradle. Bored merrow lure sailors to the depths of the ocean, tempting them with a bottle of brandy. Grumpy leprechauns, skilled shoemakers, do not forget to indulge in mischief — rarely innocent. Yesterday's dead appear as ghosts to their destroyers, while the prophetic banshees already mourn tomorrow's dead. It is not surprising that, while collecting and systematizing the tales and legends of his homeland, the greatest poet of Ireland, William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), became convinced: "if you dig deeper, every one is a seer. The Celt is a seer by nature."