Irish Folklore Quotes

Overheard at O'Banion's Beer Emporium: "Pardon me, darlin', but I'm writin' a telephone book. C'n I have yer number?

The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse to sitting down to dine thirteen at a table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, of seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tale. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, although even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.

Behind her gentle character, the strength of armor was found.

She would let her soul hide while her body was consumed with magic, fire, and boiling blood. A riveting communion.

Did Owen say your grandmother was a banshee?" "He said she was 'wailing like a banshee,'" I explained. Dan got out the dictionary , then; he was clucking his tongue and shaking his head, and laughing at himself saying, "That boy! What a boy! Brilliant but preposterous!" And that was the first time I learned, literally, what a banshee was--a banshee, in Irish folklore, is a female spirit whose wailing is a sign that a loved one will soon die.

Blind ambition drives the foolish, while the soul directs the wise.

Childhood does not last forever,' said Juniper. 'Although I believe the childish soul can endure for an eternity.

One question that has always intrigued me is what happens to demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands. Irish-Americans remember the fairies, Norwegian-Americans the nisser, Greek-Americans the vrykólakas, but only in relation to events remembered in the Old Country. When I once asked why such demons are not seen in America, my informants giggled confusedly and said “They’re scared to pass the ocean, it’s too far,” pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to America. —Richard Dorson, “A Theory for American Folklore,

When two kindred souls meet, a confluence forms that joins them in an ancient and eternal way. (Dru)

Faerie footprints are specks of magic that the earth couldn't bear to part with.

I'll tear down your realm, starting with this castle.

Early Summer, loveliest season, The world is being colored in. While daylight lasts on the horizon, Sudden, throaty blackbirds sing. The dusty-colored cuckoo cuckoos. "Welcome, summer" is what he says. Winter's unimaginable. The wood's a wickerwork of boughs. Summer means the river's shallow, Thirsty horses nose the pools. Long heather spreads out on bog pillows. White bog cotton droops in bloom. Swallows swerve and flicker up. Music starts behind the mountain. There's moss and a lush growth underfoot. Spongy marshland glugs and stutters. Bog banks shine like ravens' wings. The cuckoo keeps on calling welcome. The speckled fish jumps; and the strong Swift warrior is up and running. A little, jumpy, chirpy fellow Hits the highest note there is; The lark sings out his clear tidings. Summer, shimmer, perfect days.

To vanquish the beast, one must not be afraid to awaken it.

For no matter whether the fairies are seen metaphorically or as real beings inhabiting their own real world, a study of them shows us that those who came before us (and many of that mindset still survive) realized that we are -- no matter what we may think to the contrary -- very little creatures, here for a short time only ('passing through,' as the old people say) and that we have no right to destroy what the next generation will most assuredly need to also see itself through. If only we could learn that lesson, maybe someday we might be worthy of the wisdom of those who knew that to respect the Good People is basically to respect yourself.

Round these men stories tended to group themselves, sometimes deserting more ancient heroes for the purpose. Round poets have they gathered especially, for poetry in Ireland has always been mysteriously connected with magic.

Everyone looks for the first snowdrop as proof that our part of the earth is once more turning towards the sun, but folklore maintains that we should be wary of bringing them into the house before St Valentine’s Day, as any unmarried females could well remain spinsters!

One question that has always intrigued me is what happens to demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands. Irish-Americans remember the fairies, Norwegian-Americans the nisser, Greek-Americans the vrykólakas, but only in relation to events remembered in the Old Country. When I once asked why such demons are not seen in America, my informants giggled confusedly and said “They’re scared to pass the ocean, it’s too far,” pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to America. —Richard Dorson, “A Theory for American Folklore,” American Folklore and the Historian (University of Chicago Press, 1971)

With the motto “do what you will,” Rabelais gave himself permission to do anything he damn well pleased with the language and the form of the novel; as a result, every author of an innovative novel mixing literary forms and genres in an extravagant style is indebted to Rabelais, directly or indirectly. Out of his codpiece came Aneau’s Alector, Nashe’s Unfortunate Traveller, López de Úbeda’s Justina, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Béroalde de Verville’s Fantastic Tales, Sorel’s Francion, Burton’s Anatomy, Swift’s Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels, Fielding’s Tom Jones, Amory’s John Buncle, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, the novels of Diderot and maybe Voltaire (a late convert), Smollett’s Adventures of an Atom, Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr, Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Southey’s Doctor, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Anthony and Bouvard and Pecuchet, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Frederick Rolfe’s ornate novels, Bely’s Petersburg, Joyce’s Ulysses, Witkiewicz’s Polish jokes, Flann O’Brien’s Irish farces, Philip Wylie’s Finnley Wren, Patchen’s tender novels, Burroughs’s and Kerouac’s mad ones, Nabokov’s later works, Schmidt’s fiction, the novels of Durrell, Burgess (especially A Clockwork Orange and Earthly Powers), Gaddis and Pynchon, Barth, Coover, Sorrentino, Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, Brossard’s later works, the masterpieces of Latin American magic realism (Paradiso, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Three Trapped Tigers, I the Supreme, Avalovara, Terra Nostra, Palinuro of Mexico), the fabulous creations of those gay Cubans Severo Sarduy and Reinaldo Arenas, Markson’s Springer’s Progress, Mano’s Take Five, Ríos’s Larva and otros libros, the novels of Paul West, Tom Robbins, Stanley Elkin, Alexander Theroux, W. M. Spackman, Alasdair Gray, Gaétan Soucy, and Rikki Ducornet (“Lady Rabelais,” as one critic called her), Mark Leyner’s hyperbolic novels, the writings of Magiser Gass, Greer Gilman’s folkloric fictions and Roger Boylan’s Celtic comedies, Vollmann’s voluminous volumes, Wallace’s brainy fictions, Siegel’s Love in a Dead Language, Danielewski’s novels, Jackson’s Half Life, Field’s Ululu, De La Pava’s Naked Singularity, and James McCourt’s ongoing Mawrdew Czgowchwz saga. (p. 331)

In the mid-nineteenth century, Jeremiah Curtin, an Irish-American who had learned Irish, traveled throughout the Irish-speaking enclaves in Connacht and discovered hundreds of previously unrecorded stories. He recorded them in their original language and greatly advanced the study of Irish folklore.

Douglas Hyde’s Beside the Fire, William Butler Yeats’s The Celtic Twilight, Lady Augusta Gregory’s Visions and Beliefs of the West of Ireland, and Standish O’Grady’s collections not only established Irish folklore as one of the great oral literature traditions of Western civilization, but also provided an immense source of pride for the growing Irish Nationalist movement.

in 1935 the Irish government created the Irish Folklore Commission. In the following decades, Irish-speaking collectors scoured the countryside to record stories of saints, heroes, and spirits. Currently, more than a million and a half pages of folklore reside in the commission’s collection which, since 1971, has been continued on by the Folklore Department at University College Dublin.

The Irish-Indians, who were of dark complexion, would many times claim to be Black Dutch or Black Irish and deny their rightful Indian descent in order to stay in their aboriginal lands.

In Irish folklore,” she read, “you’re supposed to be a descendent of the Dobhar-chú. And what the hell is that?” She did another search. “Half dog, half otter or fish?

Golden feathers began to fly through the air, and the wedding guests could not at first make sense of it. The oíche sidhe kept whacking and whacking until the serving girl split apart like an overripe plum and became what she had been long ago, though neither she nor the mother who raised her had guessed it---a golden raven, one of the three enchanted birds that the prince had released to bring strife to the kingdom. The serving girl flitted out the window, free at last, while the oíche sidhe dusted their hands and went smilingly back into hiding. They stopped pomading chickens and turning pajamas into evening wear, which was ultimately a relief to the duchess, who had been down to her last nightgown. As for the prince, the serving girl's disappearance finally gave him a purpose in life. He retreated to the wilderness to learn magic from witches and any Folk who would teach him. Eventually he succeeded in turning himself into a raven, whereupon he flew off in search of his beloved. In the northeast of Ireland it is said that he is still searching for his golden bride to this day, and that if you listen closely, you can hear her name in the croaking of the ravens.

Who knows? But don't we all know the White Witch? Must she be someone in particular? We can try and find the source, but we are all born knowing the Witch, aren't we?" "Yes. We are." I think about the disease that has ravaged my brother's heart, making it weak. His illness is the White Witch. War is the White Witch. Cruelty is the White Witch. I take a breath. "There are so many things in your novel, Mr. Lewis. And then I've listened and I've written down the stories you tell me as best I can in my notebook, and I've read fairy tales and George MacDonald. I see, of course, that there is Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology in your Narnia story. There are British fairy tales, Irish folklore, and...even Father Christmas." His laugh bellows across the room so loudly that outside I spy a flock of birds loosening from their branches and flying away with their black wings.

In Romanian folklore, Baba Dochia is clearly the equivalent of the Celtic Cailleach. To recap; In Romania, it is Baba Dochia who directs the poor girl to wash wool until it is white, which she accomplishes only with outside help. A nearly identical motif is found in Ireland, where the Cailleach forces the young Goddess Bride to wash dark fleece until it is white. The name “Baba Dochia” and “Cailleach” (Irish for hag) both appear in stories of Aarne Thompson type 480: The Spinner By the Well aka “The Kind Girl and the Unkind Girl.

I do not part with my collections easily.' Collections? The word crawled over Catherine like a spider.

Dick artık mutluymuş kısacası. Elindekinin kıymetini bilecek olsa ömrünün sonuna kadar böyle mutlu yaşayabilirmiş, ancak birçok insan gibi Dick de bu konuda pek öyle akıllı sayılmazmış.