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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

few years ago I visited County Galway in Ireland. I traveled through seaside towns along the rocky coast and took a boat out to the lonely Aran Islands at the mouth of Galway Bay. I loved the lush green sheep meadows of the countryside, the smell of peat fires wafting through misty rain, the cozy pubs where we had gingerbread and strong tea. Ever since that visit, I’ve loved Irish music and literature—especially the folklore of leprechauns, fairies, and legendary Irish heroes and heroines. So now I want to share Ireland with you. Get ready for a journey to the enchanted countryside of Galway, to a time a hundred and fifty years ago, when mysterious creatures still hid in the forests and hills. Be careful not to let them see you, or you might be turned into a skunk or a weasel!

The Sidhe oathed themselves to the demands of the victors, but nothing was free. Even freedom came with a cost, a debt waiting to be collected. The fading echoes of horses and haunting sounds of horns signaled the end of one era and the beginning of a new age, with the path of sacrifice nearly forgotten by all but the fae.

In the Bone District, the past lingered like a ghost. Every inch held souls long forgotten and stories no one wanted to tell anymore for fear of calling the reason for the tales home to the teller.

Once quaking with the thunderous hoofbeats of the Wild Hunt, the ground was now littered with the broken limbs of the fallen, swept into the fray by the raging beasts. Bodies fell like autumn leaves, painting the mossy floor red. Their lifeless eyes stared up at the darkened sky, frozen in time, as yet another plea went unanswered by the goddess. They tried, in vain, to do what no other had done before, to rise up against an enemy made of shadows and hate, magic and malice.

There would be no survivors come morning. There never were. The Hunt left no hearts beating. There was no escaping the Sidhe. Not even the Fomorians, the powerful demons from below the sea, had outrun the pale ones and were driven back into the bellies of their waves and waters. But the Milesians were not demons like the Fomori. When they had come to Éire, they had a goddess blessed right to claim, and claim it they would. With spilled blood, unthinkable bargains and curses that would stain generations to come, the Milesians stood their ground.

Only in death has the payment be made. Milesian and Sidhe will make this blood trade.

The moment I stepped foot on the grounds of Legacy House, a chill ran down my spine, as if the air was saturated with the ghosts of those who were buried beneath my feet. It wasn’t just a feeling of this place being haunted. It was a certainty. Falias had been born into the belly of war, and if a person stayed still long enough, they’d be able to smell the bones of the fallen. Nothing covered up the stench of the fae or the death that trailed behind them like rotting puppy dogs.

If the fae found a way around the oath or the curse, they’d seize it, and we’d pay tenfold for having backed them into the corner.

I’m not a demon. I am Fomori. And the cost is mine alone. But the oath between the Fomori and Milesians is long over. The next time this happens, and it will, I will let them run amuck in your pretty little town. The Fomori will not carry another debt in your name.

I felt like a gut-torn rodent in the grove, waiting for death.

Make every drop of blood you lose as painful for them as it is for you.

Do not play games with those who thrive on chaos and destruction. Forget not that fae are masters of cunning and terror, birthed into the bellies of monsters and suckled from the teat of despair.

Every spell comes at a cost, and the price of magic will be paid by all. For the O’Cleary sisters, that lesson may cost one of them their soul.

There is no hope or salvation. There is no redemption. They are forever lost. Now a creature of despair, they are a true darkling that suckles from the teat of hell. Kill them before they kill you.

One dark spell. One curser fated to die. And a sister willing to damn her soul.

The Hand of Souls has an insatiable thirst. Its wicked delights are woven into the fabric of fate itself. It’s power drawing in souls like moths to a flame. As daylight fades and shadows lengthen, its cursed nature reaches out like vines in the night, ensnaring its user. Those who grasp the Hand of Souls are forever marked by its twisted touch, eternally intertwined with the darkness that plagues its very existence.

The manuscript before me was wrapped in tattered leather and adorned with Ifreann symbols that shifted under the light. Held within its blood-stained pages were the curses and spells the original sins were named after.

The flames of hell may scorch the flesh, but the whispers of devils will sear the soul. They are temptation and sin. They are desire and despair. Be careful where you seek answers. Not all costs are worth paying.

Anything can be dark if you wish it to be. Hemlock is a beautiful flower until you use it to take a life.

Is it worth the cost of your soul?” “That is the price of magic.” “No, that is the price of being a fool,” he answered. “Before this is over, you will become one more story Killian can’t tell anyone. Another memory he wishes he didn’t have.

The only difference between the fairytale happy endings and a nightmare is who is telling the tale, the victor or the victim. I am both in this story. I burned down my own castle in the end.

Holy hell,” I whispered as soon as we stepped into the hall leading to Killian’s court. My entire body shivered as it soaked up the energy twisting around us. If rage had a taste, it would be the poisonous nectar that hung in the air of Death House—bitter-sweet and deadly. It smelled like the inside of a used coffin and was just as dark. My skin prickled with a clammy cold sweat, goosebumps rolling over my skin. “There’s nothing holy about this place.” Julian pulled me closer. “I offer you a few words of wisdom in this hellish place. Do not cower here, Fiadh, not for anyone. This is not a place to look weak. Go in there like you own it. Respect is only earned through fear and dominance within these walls, and you don’t want to be seen as the only coward here. The moment they smell weakness, you’re nothing but prey in a room full of blood-thirsty predators.

If you touch me in anger again, whether it be by fist or power, I will end you and bring your court to its knees. I will worm my curses and spells so deep into the roots of your territory that it will look like another haunted forest when I’m done. There will be nothing left for the imps to destroy in my name when I am through. I will sell off pieces of my soul to magic just to end you.

Where shadows dance and secrets linger, beware the devil with the silver tongue, for in their shadows lies the truth of their true nature. Do not forget who and what they are.

Lift your chin, square your shoulders, and be ready to walk on the bones of any who stand in your way. Welcome to Death House. You bow to no one.

She who dabbles in shadows shall have darkness linger in her soul. Every spell comes at a cost and the price of magic will be paid by all.

I’d never get used to an empty bed. I’d just get used to being haunted by the decisions I had made that put me alone under my covers.

Do not be swayed by the shimmer of power… Not all that glitters is gold.

The Winter Gardener" is a similar tale, with the titular gardener replacing the shoemaker, but in this story, the gardener is merely a mortal woman who does not possess a secret identity. After the queen sacrifices herself to save her realm, the gardener plants a snowdrop over her grave, which grows as large as a tree and scatters its seeds across the realm; the tale is often used as an explanation for the perceived advantages of Irish snowdrops over those of other countries.