FAIRY SONGS AND POETRY
While music is associated with the fairies themselves, poets, particularly Irish poets, have been inspired by the otherworld for centuries. Here is a selection of Celtic poems from as early as the 12th Century taken from the Book of Leinster, up to the 20th Century when W. B. Yeats was enthralled with Celtic mythology and the world of fairy. Much of Yeats' poetry and writing alludes to the Celtic otherworld and it adds a wonderful depth and richness to much of his work. Included are 'Song of the Wander Aengus,' 'The Stolen Child,' 'The Magi' and ' 'The Hosting of the Sidhe.'
TO SOME I HAVE TALKED WITH BY THE FIRE
By WB Yeats
While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword-blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break
And the white hush end all but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.
THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE
By WB Yeats
The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;
Caolite tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.
The host is rushing twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caolite tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away.
THE MAGI
By WB Yeats
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of Silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
FAERY SONG
By Oran Sidhe
Translated by Shaw
I left in the doorway of the bower
My jewel, the dusky, brown, white-skinned,
Her eye like a star, her lip like a berry,
Her voice like a stringed instrument.
I left yesterday in the meadow of the kind
The brown-haired maid of sweetest kiss,
Her eye like a star, her cheek like a rose,
Her kiss has the taste of pears.
THE STOLEN CHILD
By W. B. Yeats
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of the reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping
than he can understand.
SONG OF THE WANDERING AENGUS
By W. B. Yeats
First published in 1899, this poem tells the story of Aengus, the (Irish) God of love, who falls in love with a bean sidh (banshee) in a dream. He then spends his life searching for her – choc full of mythological allusions….
I went out to the hazel wood
Because a fire was in my head
And cut and peeled a hazel wand
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing
And moth-like stars were flickering out
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name;
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
THE HOSTS OF THE FAERY
Translation: Kuno Meyer
Introduction: According to Patrick Logan (The Old Gods – the facts about Irish Fairies), this poem can be found in the Book of Leinster written in the twelfth century. “It describes a party of warriors who went to Magh Mel (Plain of Honey), and of the many names of fairyland, to help the king recover his wife who had been abducted from him. When they had recovered the stolen wife they all decided to remain in fairyland where their leader shares the ruling power with the king.
White shields they carry in their hands,
With emblems of pale silver;
With glittering blue swords,
With mighty stout horns.
In well-devised battle array,
Ahead of their fair chieftain
They march amid blue spears,
Pal-visaged, curly-headed bands.
They scatter the battalions of the foe,
They ravage every land they attack,
Splendidly they march to combat,
A swift distinguished, avenging host!
No wonder though their strength be great:
Songs of queens and kings are one and all;
On their heads areGolden-yellow manes.
With smooth comely bodies,
With bright blue-starred eyes,
With pure crystal teeth,
With thin red lips.
Good they are at man-slaying,
Melodious in the ale-house,
Masterly at making songs,
Skilled at playing fiddle
THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF FAERYLAND
By W. B. Yeats
He stood among a crowd at Drumahair;
His heart hung all upon a silken dress,
And he had known at last some tenderness,
Before earth took him to her stoney care;
But when a man pd fish into a pile,
It seemed they raised their little silver heads,
And sang what gold morning or evening sheds
Upon a woven world-forgotten isle
Where people love beside the raveled seas;
That Time can never mar a lover’s vows
Under that woven changeless roofs of boughs:
The singing shook him out of his new ease.
He wandered by the sands of Lissadell;
His mind ran all on money cares and fears,
And he had known at last some prudent years
Before they heaped his grave under the hill;
But while he passed before a plashy place,
A lug-worm with its gray and muddy mouth
Sang that somewhere to north or west or south
There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race
Under the golden or the silver skies;
That if a dancer stayed his hungry foot
It seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit:
And at that singing he was no more wise.
He mused behind the well of Scanavin,
He mused upon his mockers: without fail
His sudden vengeance were a country tale,
When earthly night had drunk his body in;
But one small knot0grass growing by the pool
Sang where- unnecessary cruel voice –
Old silence bids its chosen race rejoice,
Whatever raveled waters rise and fall
Or stormy silver fret the gold of day,
And midnight there enfold them like a fleece
And lover there by lover be a t peace.
The tale drove his fine angry mood away.
He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;
And might have known at last unhaunted sleep
Under that cold and vapor-turbaned steep,
Now that the earth had taken man and all:
Did not the worms that spired about his bones
Proclaim with that unwearied, reedy cry
That God has laid His fingers on the sky,
That from those fingers glittering summer runs
Upon the dancer by the dreamless wave.
Why should those lovers that no lovers miss
Dream, until God burn Nature with a kiss?
The man has found no comfort in the grave.
A FAIRY SONG
By Percy French
Stay, silver ray,
Till the airy way we wing
To the shade of the glade
Where the fairies dance and sing:
The mortals are asleep –
They can never understand
That night brings delight,
It is day in Fairyland
Float, golden note,
From the lute strings all in tune,
Climb, quiv’ring chime,
Up the moonbeams to the moon.
There is music on the river,
There is music on the strand,
Night brings delight,
It is day in Fairyland.
Sing while we swing
From the bluebell’s lofty crest.
Hey! Come and play,
Sleepy songbirds in your nest;
The glow-worm lamps are lit,
Come and join our Elfin band,
Night brings delight,
It is day in Fairyland.’
Roam thro’ the home
Where the little children sleep,
Light in our flight
Where the curly ringlets peep.
Some shining eyes may see us,
But the babies understand,
Night brings delight,It is day in Fairyland.
I'D LOVE TO BE A FAIRY'S CHILD
By Robert Graves (1895–1985)
CHILDREN born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their heart’s desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they’re seven years old.
Every fairy child may keep
Two strong ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild—
I’d love to be a Fairy’s child.
THE FAIRIES
By William Allingham
Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music,
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen,
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back
Between the night and morrow;
They thought she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
Watching till she wake.
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite?
He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.
THE ELVE'S DANCE
Anonymous
Round about, round about,
In a fair ring-a,
Thus we dance, thus we dance,
And thus we sing-a,
Trip and go, to and fro
Over this green-a,
All about, in and out,
For our brave Queen-a.
INVOCATION TO THE FAIRIES
By F.D. Browne-Hemans
Fays and fairies haste away!
This is Harriet's holiday:
Bring the lyre, and bring the lute,
Bring the sweetly-breathing flute;
Wreaths of cowslips hither bring,
All the honours of the spring;
Adorn the grot with all that's gai,
Fays and fairies haste away
Bring the vine to Bacchus dear,
Bring the purple lilac here,
Festoons of roses, sweetest flower,
The yellow primrose of the bower,
Blue-ey'd violets wet with dew,
Bring the clustering woodbine too
Bring the baskets made of rush,
The cherry with it's ripen'd blush,
The downy peach, so soft so fair,
The luscious grap, the mellow pear:
These to Harriet hither bring,
And sweetly in return she'll sing
Be the brilliant grotto scene
The palace of the Fairy Queen
Form the sprightly circling dance,
Fairies here your steps advance;
To harp's soft dulcet sound
Let your footsteps lightly bound
Unveil your forms to mortal eye;
Let Harriet view your revelry
FAERY SONG
By John Keats
Ah ! Woe is me ! poor silver-wing !
That I must chant they lady's dirge,
And death to this fair haunt of spring,
Of melody, and streams of flowery verge --
Poor silver-wing ! ah ! woe is me !
That I must see
These blossoms snow upon thy lady's pall !
Go, pretty page ! and in her ear
Whisper that the hour is near !
Softly tell her not to fear
Such calm Favonian burial !
Go, pretty page ! and softly tell --
The blossoms hang by a melting spell,
And fall they must, ere a star wink thrice
Upon her closed eyes,
That now in vain are weeping in their last tears,
At sweet life leaving, and these arbors green --
Rich dowry from the spirit of the spheres
alas ! poor queen !
GREEN RAIN
By Mary Webb
Into the scented woods we'll go,
And see the blackthorn swim in snow.
High above, in the budding leaves,
A brooding dove awakes and grieves;
The glades with mingled music stir,
And wildly laughs the woodpecker.
When blackthorn petals pearl the breeze,
There are the twisted hawthorne trees
Thick-set with buds, as clear and pale
As golden water or green hail--
As if a storm of rain had stood
Enchanted in the thorny wood,
nd, hearing fairy voices call,
Hung poised, forgetting how to fall.
HERE WE COME A-PIPING
Anonymous
Here we come a-piping,
In springtime and in May;
Green fruit a-ripening,
And Winter fled away.
The Queen she sits upon the strand,
Fair as lily, white as wand;
Seven billows on the sea,
Horses riding fast and free,
And bells beyond the sand.
THE FAIRY RING
By George Mason and John Earsden
Let us in a lover’s round
Circle all this hallowed ground;
Softly, softly trip and go,
the light-foot Fairies jet it so.
Forward then and back again,
Here and there and everywhere,
Winding to and fro,
Skipping high and louting low;
And, like lovers, hand in hand,
March around and make a stand.
I STOOD AGAINST THE WINDOW
By Rose Fyleman
I stood against the window
And I looked between the bars,
And there were strings of fairies
Hanging from the stars;
Everywhere and everywhere
In shining, swinging chains;
The air was full of shimmering,
Like sunlight when it rains.
They kept on swinging, swinging,
They flung themselves so high
They caught upon the pointed moon
And hung across the sky.
And when I woke next morning,
There still were crowds and crowds
In beautiful bright bunches
All sleeping on the clouds
HALLOWEEN SONG OF DIVINATION
Traditional
Introduction: In Chamber’s “Popular rhymes of Scotland (1870) there is another version of a Mother Goose rhyme (Luna, every woman’s friend…) that was recited at Halloween by girls who wished to know who their husband might be and what the quality of the marriage might be.
This knot, this knot, this knot I knit,
To see the thing I ne’er saw yet
To see my love in his array,
And what he walks in every day;
And what his occupation be,
This night I in my sleep may see.
And if my love be clad in green
His love for me is well seen;
And if my love is clad in gray,
His love for me is far away;
But if my love be clad in blue,
His love for me is very true.
“Once this was done, she placed the garter under her pillow, believing that her intended would appear in her dreams and that the colour of his clothes would attest to the quality of the marriage.”
Source: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Skelton, Robon & Margaret Blackwood, Arkana (Penguin Group) London, 1990
THE FAIRY QUEEN
Anonymous
Come, follow, follow me,
You, fairy elves that be:
Which circle on the greene,
Come, follow Mab your queene.
Hand in hand let’s dance around,
For this place is fairye ground.
When mortals are at rest,
And snoring in their nest:
Unheard,and unespy’d,
Through key-holes we do glide
; Over tables, stools, and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.
And , if the house be foul
With platter, dish, or bowl,
Up stairs we nimbly creep,
And find the sluts asleep:
There we pinch their armes and thighs;
None escapes, nor none espies.
But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And duely she is paid:
For we use before we goe
To drop a tester in her shoe.
Upon a mushroomes head
Our table-cloth we spread;
A grain of rye, or wheat,
Is manchet, which we eat;
Pearly drops of dew we drink
In acorn cups fill’d to the brink.
The brains of nightingales,
With unctuous fat of snails,
Between two cockles stew’d,
Is meat that’s easily chew’d;
Tailes of wormes, and marrow of mice,
Do make a dish, that’s wonderous nice.
The grasshopper, gnat, and fly,
Serve for our minstrelsie;
Grace said, we dance a while,
And so the time beguile;
And if the moon doth hide her head,
The gloe-worm lights us home to bed.
On tops of dewie grasse
So nimbly do we passé,
The young and tender stalk
Ne’er bends when we do walk:
Yet in the morning may be seen
Where we the night before have been.
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
By John Keats
O what can ail thee Knight at arms
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake
And no birds sing!
O what can ail thee Knight at arms
So haggard and so woe begone?
The Squirrel’s granary is full
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lilly on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a Lady in the Meads
Full beautiful – a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild –
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love
And made sweet moan –
I sat her on my pacing steed –
And nothing else saw all day long
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery’s song –
She found me roots of relish sweet
And honey wild and manna dew
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grotA
nd there she wept and signed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With Kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed. Ah Woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,
Pale warriors death pale were they all;
They cried – “La belle dame sans merci
Thee hat in thrall.”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing.
THE NIGHT SWANS
By Walter de la Mare
“Tis silence on the enchanted lake,
And silence in the air serene,
Save for the beating of her heart,
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.
She sings across the waters clear
And dark with trees and stars between,
The notes her fairy godmother
Taught her, the child Evangeline.
As might the unrippled pool reply,
and answer far and sweet,
Three swans as white as mountain snow
Swim mantling to her feet.
And still upon the lake they stay,
Their eyes black stars in all their snow,
And softly, in the glassy pool,
Their feet beat darkly to and fro.
She rides upon her little boat,
Her swans swim through the starry sheen,
Rowing her into Fairyland –
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.
“Tis silence on the enchanted lake
And silence in the air serene;
Voices shall call in vain again
On earth the child Evangeline.
Evangeline! Evangeline!
Upstairs, downstairs, all in vain.
Her room is dim; her flowers faded;
She answers not again.
FAIRY-LAND
By Edgar Allan Poe
Dim vales- and shadowy floods-
cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over!
Huge moons there wax and wane-
Again- again- again-
Every moment of the night-
Forever changing places-
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial,
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down- still down- and down,
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain's eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be-
O'er the strange woods-
o'er the sea-
Over spirits on the wing-
Over every drowsy thing-
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light-
And then, how deep!-
O, deep!Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like- almost anything-
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before-
Videlicet, a tent-
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
By Lewis Carroll (1872)
Child of pure, unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet and
I and thouAre half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love-gift of a fairy tale.
THE FAIRIES’ DANCED
By Thomas Ravenscroft
Dare you haunt our hallow’d green?
None but fairies here are seen
Down and sleep,
Wake and weep,
Pinch him black, and pinch him blue,
That seeks to steal a lover true!
When you come to hear us sing,
Or to tread our fairy ring,
Pinch him black, an pinch him blue!
O thus our nails shall handle you!
THE RUIN
By Walter de la Mare
When the last colours of the day
Have from their burning ebbed away,
About that ruin, cold and lone,
The cricket shrills from stone to stone;
And scattering o’er its darkened green,
Bends of the fairies may be seen,
Chattering like grasshoppers, their feet
Dancing a thistledown dance round it:
While the great gold of the mild moon
Tinges their tiny acorn shoon.
THE ELVES’ DANCE
By THOMAS RAVENSCROFT
Round about in a fair ring-a,
Thus we dance and thus we sing-a;
Trip and go, to and fro,
Over this green –a;
All about, in and out,
Over this green-a.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
She who sits by haunted well,
Is subject to the Nixies’ spell;
She who walks on lonely beach
To the Mermaid’s charmed speech;
She who walks round ring of green,
Offends the peevish Fairy Queen;
And she who takes rest in the dwarfie’s cave,
A weary weird of who shall have
THOMAS CAMPION
Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,
Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair,
Then thrice-three times tie up this true love’s know,
And murmur soft “She will or she will not.”
Go, burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire,
These screech-owl’s feathers and this prickling briar,
This cypress gathered at a dead man’s grave,
That all my fears and cares an end may have.
Then come, you Fairies! Dance with me a round!
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound!
In vain are all the charms I can devise:
She hath an art to break them with her eyes
MOTHER GOOSE
There are men in the village of Erith
Whom nobody seeth or heareth,
And there looms, on the marge
Of the river, a barge
That nobody roweth or steereth.
MOTHER GOOSE
Little Lad, little lad, where were you born?
Far off in Lancashire, under a thorn,
Where they sup butter-milk
With a ram’s horn;
And a pumpkin scoop’s
With a yellow rim,
Is the bonny bowl they breakfast in.
THOMAS CAMPION
Hark, all you ladies that do sleep!
The fairy-queen Proserpina
Bids you awake and pity them that weep:
You may do in the dark
What the day doth forbid;
Fear not the dogs that bark,
Night will have all hid.
But if you let your lovers moan,
The fairy-queen Proserpina
Will send abroad her fairies every one,
They shall pinch black and blue
Your white hands and fair arms
That did not kindly rue
Your paramours’ arms.
In myrtle arbours on the downs
The fairy-queen Proserpina,
This night by moonshine leading merry rounds,
Holds a watch with sweet love,
Down the dale, up the hill;
No plaints or groans may move
Their holy vigil
QUEEN MAB
By P. B. SHELLEY
I am the Fairy MAB: to me ‘tis given
The wonders of the human world to keep:
The secrets of the immeasurable past,
In the unfailing consciences of men,
Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find:
The future, form the causes which arise
In each event, I gather: not the sting
Which retributive memory implants
In the hard bosom of the selfish man;
Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb
Which virtue’s votary feels when he sums up
The thoughts and actions of a well-spend day,
Are unforeseen, unregistered by me:
And it is yet permitted me, to rent
The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit
Clothed in its changeless purity, may know
How soonest to accomplish the great end
For which it hath its being, and may taste
That peace, which in the end all life will share
THE FAIRIES
By ROBERT HERRICK
If ye will with Mab find grace,
Set each Platter in his place:
Rake the Fier up, and get
Water in, ere Sun be set.
Wash your Pailes, and cleanse your Dairies;
Sluts are loathsome to the Fairies:
Sweep your house:
Who doth not so,
Mab will pinch her by the toe.