Blog assignments: (1) Write your personal response to each of the Irish Fairytales for this lesson’s reading. (2) What do the Irish fairytales tell you about the Irish view of space and time? DUE: Wednesday June 10 by 9:00 PM



The King Of Ireland's Son
In the second paragraph, when I read "hair as black as the raven's head, skin as white as snow, and cheeks as red as blood," the first mental image was Snow White.



(Disney's version)

As I read the rest of the tale, I was highly suspicious of that little green man. I kept waiting for the “Rumpelstiltskin” ending where the magical green man would kiss (claim) the woman for himself, using trickery to deprive the young man of his birth-right, which would later be “righted” when the prince out-tricked the trickster (a familiar motif). When we discover the true identity of the Little Green Man, we discover this story is about kindness and generosity, one that reminds the reader that deeds like nature, are cyclical.


The Little Green Man is a character that can be found in Ireland, Scotland and England. Though there is some mystery as to the origins of the little green man, his image is an archetype for the “man of nature” or “man as nature.” We might also see a connection between the little green man and leprechauns. The leprechaun/man of nature is a good lead-in for the next fairy tale. The traditional (green man) Leprachaun pot of gold shares the “rich-earth” motif we’ll see in the next fairy tale.

Dreams of Gold
The hidden treasure motif is also well known throughout folk literature and fairy tales. The dream of unimaginable wealth, especially among populations that lived off the land, represented an end to their daily toil. Instant wealth stories are ‘promise’ stories that appealed to an audience that frequently struggled with meeting basic needs for themselves and family. The message in the Dreams of Gold story can be interpreted many ways. In another story, we will read about druids. Druidism was the religion of pre-Christian Celts. In this story, it is “believed” that hidden treasure is to be found at the church of Kilmacdaugh (a Christian church).


The man from Mayo does not find treasure at the Church of Kilmacdaugh. Instead, he finds “a pot of gold with no end of riches in it” located at home, in his own garden. The message is fairly clear. The real ‘treasure’ is home, family, earth. The earlier druidism was a theology where man and nature were part of the same ‘family’. This fairy tale speaks to the dichotomy between the natural druidic heritages vs. the imported Roman Gods, that became prominent only by committing “theocide” when Druidic shaman were systematically rounded up by Roman soldiers and slaughtered.


The Birth of Finn MacCumhail
At the onset, we read a story about a king who hears from a Druid that his daughter’s son would take the kingdom from him. The first thought that comes to mind is the story of Merlin and how his advice to Uther Pendragon cost him his life. Arthurian legend is unclear on whether Merlin was a valued advisor to King Arthur or whether he was a power-hungry trickster. However, when we read this Irish folk tale, we might see similarities between Arthurian legend, and also references to Christianity (both sources share the story of a King who orders the murder of innocent children). The stories also feature the hero who escapes, only to rise and fulfill his destiny as an adult. The Christ Story, Arthurian Legend, and the Finn MacCumhail stories also feature super-human (or divine) rescues as well as super-human examples from their early years that comment on the greatness of the man the hero will become. Although there are some shared elements, one very bizarre scene that sets the MacCumhail story apart from the rest is the scene where MacCumhail is riding aboard his grandmother’s back as she makes a fantastic escape…and old woman with an adult male clutched to her back, and she’s outrunning white horses and brown horses, as well as giving that black horse a solid run for his money too.

When MacCumhail was killing the hag’s arsonist sons, I couldn’t help but imagine what that scary hag might have looked like. The first mental image was…



I reckon the idea of a scary old woman with her bumbling sons felt a little close to home. The third son in the story was unusual. The story-teller decided to give this particular son a cat’s head. I assume he didn’t mean a teeny-tiny domestic housecat-styled cathead. After all, big body with little teeny head would look like some Jivaro Indian got hold of him and turned him into a living tsantsa.

The druidic practitioners believed in animism. It was believed (and still is in some areas of the world) that the essence of a creature resides in its flesh (and more specifically, the blood). It is believed that a man inherits the traits of the creatures he consumes. This type of animist thinking is the reason the story-teller gave the third son a cat’s head. In the natural world, feline predators are among the most ferocious hunters. The cathead is a metaphor that tells the reader that the third son is more than a man. He is ferocious and agile and fast… like a cat. When MacCumhail chews his thumb, he learns that the old hag has a special elixir that can revive her dead sons. Later, we learn that the dead hag’s blood also has the ability to miraculously heal; the same motif of healing-blood is seen in Arthurian legend, which links us to Christianity and lore about the Holy Grail and the curative power of the blood of Christ (brought back into popular focus by both Indiana Jones and The DaVinci Code).

The old hag’s “magical” blood relates to animism where “blood” is “the essence” of life. The idea that living blood has the ability to stave off death gave rise to the legend of vampires. The myth of living blood also encouraged some humans to consume blood, furthering the vampire legend. One of the more famous examples of this quest for living blood was Elizabeth Bathory who purportedly murdered over 650 women, bathing in their blood because she believed it would keep her young.

Eduard Veith – Mythical Fountain of Youth Elizabeth Bathory, The Blood Countess




Usheen’s Return to Ireland
This story might remind the reader of a fellow named Rip VanWinkle. This story plays with the idea of mortality and the fountain-of-youth solution to aging. Where other conventions such as fountains and blood have offered immortality, this story provides an entire otherworldly realm in which time seems to stand still. Tir-Nan-Oge may remind us of the garden of eden story. From a Christian tradition, this story suggest a return to the time before the fall of man. And like the Garden story, in the story of Usheen’s return, his great fall results from an act of simple disobedience. Simply put, he broke the rules and death was his reward. The defeat-of-death motif also set the stage for Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Grey. Additionally, the notion of cheating death/playing God was also addressed by Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein. In biblical literature, Pilate was condemned by god to walk the earth for eternity. The dream of life-everlasting is as old as recorded human history. The question we might ask ourselves then, would we *want* to live forever? Or is “forever” a curse?

The Western World was not the only culture that sought to dream about cheating death. In China, the Emperor YungLe (builder of the Forbidden City) died from mercury poisoning as he believed the “elixir” would give him immortality.


Fair, Brown and Trembling
The story shares elements from the Cinderella stories. However, in this version, there is no knight in shining armor. Instead, it appears the more beautiful “Trembling” is just out of luck. The story ends commenting that The King of Omanya fell in love with the eldest sister. I think the rest of the story got chopped off



The Man Who Had No Story
This story is a gentle warning about sacred space. When O’Braonachain violates the fairly glen, his violation is a violation of sacred ground. Fortunately, his adventure didn’t cost him his life. However, at the very end of the story we read “he never again cut a rod from that day to this.” I think it’s worth noting that O’Braonachain didn’t violate the fairy glen for folly. The poor guy was trying to eek out a meager living and did what he had to do to provide. He may not have lost his life, but he did lose his occupation, the means to put food on the table. The story tends to work as an admonishment against the powerful and wealthy lords who held large estates, men who were known to abuse their absolute power by executing members of the commonwealth for petty crimes such as hunting or taking any form of food from the “sacred” estate. This notion of land-ownership is an idea that conflicted with the druidic culture where characters like the little green man provided an archetypal reminder that man and nature were equal. The little green man was the personified nature. So when we read this story, we might see the dichotomy between the natural world, the world inhabited by fairies and all variety of wonderful creatures of the unknown vs. the western violation into Ireland’s mother culture. It was a violation that diminished the value of the man and held sacred the value of OWNED (and therefore sacred) land and resource rights. The story reminds acts as a lesson to remind the reader/teller that sacred land is sacred for a reason. If we consider the oftentimes brutal methods of landlord practices, the story also shows kindness and the gentler good spirit of the natural world; Western Mother Culture/Christianity/Rome vs. Irish Mother Nature/druidism/rusticism.


The Irish folk literature shares features that will remind us of fairy tales we've all heard before.

The really cool thing is that fairy tales and folk literature share similar features almost nose-to-nose with linguistics as they emerged from Africa. I would suggest oral tradition vs. written tradition explains why there are similar threads, even though the stories are not the same. This common mythology links Ireland back to the Caucuses area near the Black Sea where similar folk tales were told and retold along early Celtic trade routes. This is why folk literature among the Black Sea tribes shares many of the same principle elements. In this regard, the shared mythologies might remind us of the similar, but regionally nuanced undercurrent we found dispersed among African communities.