Calling up Irish mythology and legend.

books, stories, , , , ,

As I was listening to Gerard Doyle narrate The King of Ireland’s Son, I kept imagining children listening to their parents read the stories, and that made them even more delightful. Several reviews from parents who did read them aloud, and even the ones who didn’t care for the book themselves, admitted that the children loved them. Many adults said that they’d heard the stories as children and read them on their own when they grew up, often multiple times. This was the case with my dear friend from whom I heard about this book a couple of years ago.

First I listened to the Audible version in bits and pieces, many parts several times over, because I would get distracted or fall asleep and have to backtrack. Though I was captivated by the Irish storytelling style of Gerard Doyle, listening was not the best way for me, not primarily an auditory learner, to keep the characters and their adventures straight. Finally, desperate to make sense of everything, I completed the print edition.

Now, I am still at a loss for how to articulate what charms me so much about Colum’s accomplishment, so I looked to other readers who might do it for me. One reader who enjoyed it many times, as a child and as an adult, wrote, “I am stunned at the beauty of Colum’s language and at his handling of plot. There is a story within a story within a story, with smaller tales that reflect on the main ones and often involve the same characters…. And the stories themselves often have an eerie beauty and an undercurrent of sadness. But there’s lots of humor, too, [The King of Cats is hilarious. -GJ] and lots of adventure, and, among the characters, girls as well as boys get to show spunk and initiative.”

Then the King of Ireland’s Son
mounted his horse and rode away—
His hound at his heel,
His hawk on his wrist;
A brave steed to carry him whither he list
And the green ground under him.

Another reviewer explains how “…what initially appear to be seven different stories actually blend together to become tales-within-tales. The primary tale is a coming-of-age story of the quests of the youngest son of the King of Ireland. During the course of the quest, the king’s son and others in the primary tale relate stories of their own. Characters from these secondary tales then appear later in the primary tale. The end result is a rich and complex tapestry of interconnecting histories and experiences as each character grows and finds out more about him- or herself. It soon becomes clear that for the central characters, learning the stories themselves becomes the goal of their quest.”

A little background on Colum and the book:

“Although the book was written in America in the years before 1916, Colum was a close friend and colleague of some of those who led the Easter Rising. The King of Ireland’s Son was the ultimate calling-up of Irish mythology and legend, and… made many happy hours for children curled up before glowing turf fires to read by the light of Tilley lamps in the long winter evenings of the new Ireland.”

“Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest the last name was the same as the word column. ‘In my first name, the first a has the sound of au. The ordinary pronunciation in Irish is pau’drig.'” (Wikipedia)

Are some of you, my blogging reading friends, familiar with The King of Ireland’s Son? Please tell me about your experience of it. I’m hoping to find a child to read it to very soon!

Padraic Colum sketch by John Butler Yeats

The Birds of Passage

birds, poetry, , ,

THE BIRDS OF PASSAGE

You are the one who made us
You silver all the minnows in all rivers
You wait in the deep woods
To find the newborn fox cubs
And unseal their eyes
You shower the sky with stars

You walk alone
In the wild royal darkness
Of the heavens above the heavens
Where no one else can go.

When the fragile swallows assemble
For their pilgrimages
When the hummingbirds
Who are scarcely more
Than a glittering breath
Set out for the rain forest
To drink from the scarlet flowers
On the other side of the world
With only now and then
The mast of a passing ship
For a resting place and an inn

When the Canada geese
Are coming down from the north
When the storks of Europe
Stretch out their necks toward Egypt
From their nests on the chimney tops
When shaking their big wings open
And trailing their long legs after them
They rise up heavily
To begin their autumn flight

You who speak without words
To your creatures who live without words
Are hiding under their feathers

To give them a delicate certainty
On the long dangerous night journey.

-Anne Porter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo is from the Chirp for Birds website.

He recalled the sojourn with longing.

history, icons, quotes, , ,
By David Roberts, 1839

From Father Justin’s blog on the treasures and scenes of St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, I am sharing a link to his post from last year featuring a very old mosaic icon of the Prophet Hosea, from the sixth century. He writes in the comments:

“Roberto Nardi and his team of conservators recently carried out a major program to consolidate and clean and conserve the mosaic. From their detailed study, they became convinced that it is the work of artisans from Constantinople. The portrait medallions of the apostles around the arch, and the prophets around the base, are each very striking and individualized. An examination of the mosaic up close reveals surprising colour juxtapositions, that the artisans knew would blend together when the mosaic was seen from a distance. Every detail is a source of wonder.”

You can see Fr Justin’s close-up photo of the brilliant icon here: “The Prophet Hosea.” He says of the prophet that, “He recalled the sojourn in the wilderness with longing,” because during that period the Israelites were close to God, whereas in the time during which Hosea lived, their faith was weak.

This fresco below is not that mosaic icon, and is very different from it; I like its energy. It is featured in another article on the prophet here, which gives more of his story from the Bible: The Orthodox Times.

I hope you will take a look at Fr. Justin’s photo of the sixth century mosaic: Prophet Hosea.

Balmy with bread and honey.

my garden, work, , , , , , , , ,

The sun was hot on my back as I reached up on the trellis to gather the dried Painted Lady runner beans. I separated the beans from the vines and carried loads of still vigorous leafy matter to the green bin. After a while the sun went behind the pine tree, but the balminess hung on.

It was quite a workout climbing up and balancing on the planter box, hauling vines back over the fence from the neighbor’s yard where they always wander. So when I had stashed a five gallon bucket full of bean pods into the garage, I leaned back in my orange plastic Adirondack chair (stained from being out in the weather for years) that I’d moved away from the bean corner, and drank a can of sparkling water.

I was intensely aware of my riches. This morning I had picked another several dozen feijoas, and we put them and what remained from the last week into the dehydrator. Reading ideas for how to use a heavy crop, I learned that people do eat the skins. So I tried a few with their skins on and they are nice that way. The skins are a little more tart than the flesh, but they add another layer of complexity to the overall flavor, and a little crunch. The neighbor’s redwood tree looms over my pineapple guava, so that the dried and prickly twigs that fall are always interspersed with the fruit, and usually tangled in my hair when I come inside from picking.

Below, parsley, which I was prepping to put into the Parsley-Tarragon Salsa Verde, and in which I was exulting. When I have a good sized parsley patch it feels like the most versatile resource. Plus the swallowtails love it!

tarragon

Last year I never got around to harvesting those runner beans until they had been rained on a few times and ruined. So it felt good to have put them under cover, and also to not let the feijoas go to waste. I had made that extra batch of salsa before the tarragon went into dormancy. I could sit back and relax, and just be in the garden. The awareness of my wealth brought to mind the king who was in his counting house, counting out his money, the queen in the parlor, eating bread and honey, and the maid in the garden getting her nose bitten off.

Well, I was the king, taking account of my bounty. But in the garden. And the queen, feasting on the most satisfying and sweet soul food — in the garden. Some days I hang the laundry in the sun, as does the maid, but that also makes me feel rich.

The king was in the counting house,
Counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When along came a blackbird,
And snipped off her nose.

-Sing a Song of Sixpence

The first of the newer white Japanese anemones buds opened today, October 16! I’d have to say I’m rich with anemones at this point. The pincushion flower plants that I cut down to stubs and moved to the planter boxes have started blooming again amongst the basil that also won’t stop.

Back to the feijoas:

Bea blended up some pulp with an apple to make fruit leather, and I sliced the rest with the skin on. Now all of that experimental goodness is in process in the dehydrator, and filling the garage with its aroma.

One last thing to illustrate my brimming treasure stores: The rudbeckia is still blooming!! It has been showing off its gold since May 22, and I expect it will go another week at least, which will add up to five months of opulence. Not only are its flowers still lovely, but the leaves are turning all purply and mottled at the end of the season, a patina of autumn. Because it sits close to the street for everyone to see as they drive by, it’s the part of my abundance that gets shared with the most people. I hope it might cause some of them to say, Glory to God for His most generous gifts!