The Paper Trail Search for Ella Young

 For those who are seriously interested in knowing more about Ella Young I have compiled a list of the many archives from which I obtained material on or by Ella Young.  This list no doubt needs to be updated - so I encourage you to follow her paper trail, track down her known associations to see if she can be found among their papers. Research!  This requires extensive digging and analyzing. As my mother often said: "A job worth doing, is a job worth doing well." 

Two valuable resources for finding relevant collections are:

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) - The Library of Congress

Online Archive of California (OAC)

Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley

Selected archives & special collections:

1.    Harrison Memorial Library, Carmel California

       Henry Meade Williams Local History Department

 

              Denise Sallee Collection of Ella Young Research

2.    Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles

       Department of Special Collections

               

              Ella Young Papers, 1900-1956

              Frances Clarke Sayers Papers

3.     The Library of Congress

         Washington, D.C.

               The Papers of Ella Young

4.       National Library of Ireland

          Dublin, Ireland

                Joseph McGarrity Papers, 1789-1971

                Coffey and Chenevix Trench papers, 1868-2007.

                

                Ceannt and O'Brennan Papers, 1851-1953.

                Papers relating to the trial of Roger Casement, 1916-1917.

               

                Colonel Maurice Moore Papers, 1841-1939

                Count Plunkett Papers, 1648-1940

                Papers of Methold Sidney Parry and Gertrude Parry née Bannister relating to 

                Roger Casement and Irish politics, 1895-1932.

                Sheehy Skeffington Papers

                Patrick McCartan Papers, 1912-1938

5.        Bancroft Library

           University of California, Berkeley

                 Noël Sullivan papers, circa 1911-1956.

                 James D. Phelan papers, approximately 1858-1892.

                 W.W. Lyman Papers

                   

                 B. Lehman Papers

                 Una Jeffers Papers

                 Cedric Wright Papers

                 Office of the President 

                 C.E.S. Wood Papers

                Marie de la Veaga Welch West Papers

                Sylvanus Griswold Morley papers, 1896-1969.

6.      Center for Creative Photography

         University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

                Ansel Adams Collection

                Paul Strand Collection

7.      Tor House Foundation

         Carmel, California

8.     Harry Ransom Center

        University of Texas, Austin, Texas

          Dorothy Brett Papers

9.    Special Collections & University Archives

       Stanford Library

       Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

           American Authors Collection (John O'Shea letters)

10.  Huntington Library

       San Marino, California

           Charles Erskine Scott Wood Collection

           Keene Collection

11. Special Collections

      Trinity College, Dublin Ireland

            

                    

An Ancient Tale of Éire

HOW THE GUBBAUN SAOR WENT INTO THE COUNTRY

OF THE EVER-YOUNG 

by

Ella Young

From STORIES FROM THE WONDER SMITH AND HIS SON (1927)

"I had the Master-Word," said the Gubbaun. "I had knowledge enough to make a sky of stars. Now it is gone from me."
"You know the talk of the birds," said the Son, "and the talk of the beasts, and the talk of the grasses. Is that not enough?"
"I knew the joy that is in the heart of the sun! I knew the secret of life. Now it is gone."
He said no more. He sat day-long like a stone. He lay night-long like a stone; like a sea-crag when the water ebbs from it. For the length of time the moon takes to broaden and grow slender he was like that: strength ebbed from him.
"My thousand griefs!" cried the Son, "he will die: he will not leave behind him the wisdom of his craft!"
"Go to him," said Aunya, "when day whitens. Ask him what tree is king of the forest. It may be that the brightness of his mind will come back to him: if it comes back, cry out that the Dune of Angus is fallen!"
The Son of the Gubbaun rose early. He kindled a fire with boughs of the blackthorn. He dipped the palms of his hands in clear cold well-water. He wrapped himself in a cloak the colour of an amethyst stone.
He went and stood before the Gub­baun.
"0 Wonder-Smith, 0 Master-Builder," he cried, "The Sun is mirrored in the Sacred Well.  What Tree is King of the Forest?"  

"I know a Forest," said the Gubbaun, "the roots of it go down deep, deep into the heart of the earth: the branches of it spread among the stars: the stars are fruit upon its branches. The leaves of it make a singing in my mind — singing and sleep."


* Available in this collection: At the Gates of Dawn: A Collection of Writings by Ella Young.

Making the connection...Ella Young & Mary Oliver

Image by Denise Sallee. © Denise Sallee 2016

I am slowly, lovingly, breathing in Mary Oliver's book of essays Upstream. Though published 73 years later, Oliver's excerpt below echoes Ella Young's own words published in The Oakland Tribune, Sept, 22, 1931 and reprinted in the anthology  At the Gates of Dawn: A Collection of Writings by Ella Young.

Time does not alter the fundamental and the elemental truths of this world.  Though we allow ourselves to be easily caught up in the ephemeral nothingness of politics - the flag waving, the flag burning - words such as Oliver's and Young's are like finding an oasis filled with a calm and sober light directing us back to the purity of truth and away from that "false world."

First let us hear from Mary Oliver:

Teach the children. We don't matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers. And the frisky ones—inkberry, lamb's quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones—rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.

And, now, from Ella Young: 

    It’s fairy lore that makes the world beautiful…there are fairies all about us, if we’ll only look for them. How sad it is that a materialistic world laughs at them and their beauty…
“If you want to develop imagination in a child, to fan the creative spark which may make him great, you can’t restrict his thought. The fairy kingdom is a vast realm of magic where most anything can happen. It’s a far more interesting place for a youngster than to take him riding in a street car…Fairies, also, are not for all children, but to those who love them let them have them.”
"...The modern child…lives in a false world surrounded by mechanical toys and artificial amusements. There is no time to let the child sit and think; to turn out to nature, where the mountains, the birds and the flowers may talk to him - and they do talk - and to let him feel the beauty of things about him. And, then, how will a child know the greatest lessons of antiquity if his elders frown upon the rich folklore which affords him an inheritance of imagination and romance?

Totem of Gratitude

Image by Denise Sallee.  © Denise Sallee 2016

The hawk's cry as she soars across the very hills I resist calling my home. Words written in a faraway place and time that sought and found their secret entry to my soul. The memory imprinted, deeper than the ink of a tattoo and deeper still than death, your breath against my skin. A mother's love both given and received. A father's strength. The quiet miracle of rain. Going deeper, despite the darkness, and trusting in my resilience. Ancient notes; passion's sung; vibrations of a stranger's heart beating in my own. Lips to linger; hands to heal; eyes to envision; feet to fly.  Health. Discernment. Fire. A raven's wing lifted to the moon. The Moon. The Light. The Dark. The embrace. The surrender.

Samhain

Image by Denise Sallee.  © Denise Sallee 2016

 

 

 

 

 

Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground 
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my own mind across another,
I am with my mother's mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
"Carry me." She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.

Annie Finch, "Samhain" from Eve, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. Copyright © 1997 by Annie Finch

"The Tide of Sorrow" by A.E.

Image by Denise Sallee. © Denise Sallee 2016

The Tide of Sorrow
By: George William (“A. E.”) Russell (1867–1935).
From:  Collected Poems by A.E.  1913.

















ON the twilight-burnished hills I lie and long and gaze
Where below the grey-lipped sands drink in the flowing tides,
Drink, and fade and disappear: interpreting their ways
       A seer in my heart abides.

Once the diamond dancing day-waves laved thy thirsty lips:
Now they drink the dusky night-tide running cold and fleet,
Drink, and as the chilly brilliance o’er their pallor slips
        They fade in the touch they meet.

Wave on wave of pain where leaped of old the billowy joys:
Hush and still thee now unmoved to drink the bitter sea,
Drink with equal heart: be brave; and life with laughing voice
          And death will be one for thee.

Ere my mortal days pass by and life in the world be done,
Oh, to know what world shall rise within the spirit’s ken
When it grows into the peace where light and dark are one!
           What voice for the world of men?

Fionavar - the myth of war and peace

Image by Denise Sallee. © Denise Sallee 2009

I remember well the idealism of my youth when I believed in (and worked for) world peace. Each year since has led to more and more war, more fighting over territory and religion. More greed. More power. The only peace I believe in now is that which I try to find for myself, within myself.

I came across Eva Gore-Booth's notes for her dramatic work based upon Queen Maeve, her daughter Fionavar, and the ongoing struggle between war and peace. And then I remembered that Ella Young had also written about Fionavar so I decided to group the two Irish women's words together.  They both lived through  terribly troubling times in Ireland, and they both understood the power of their mythic tradition.

Notes by Eva Gore-Booth:

The meaning I got out of the story of Maeve is a symbol of the world-old struggle in the human mind between the forces of dominance and pity, of peace and war. The time has come, in the history of a human soul, when a newly developed and passionate sense of unity undermines the ancient ideals of savage heroism and world-power. Thus the reign of the old warlike gods is rashly broken into and threatened by the fascination of a new idea. The birth of imagination, the new god of pity, is symbolised in the outside world by the crucifixion of Christ.

A vision of this event is seen by Maeve the Warrior Queen of Connaught at the moment of its happening and becomes the turning point of her life and thought...Beyond [Maeve's] fighting, her great joy in life is her daughter Fionavar, a young girl of fifteen who has as yet seen nothing of war. Whilst the battle is raging, Maeve and Fionavar go to consult a Druidess as to the result of the fight. The Druidess, under the influence of the sea god Mannanaum, sees visions of the future in the stream of water that flows through her tent. She prophesies the death of Fionavar on the battlefield. At her incantation the presence of the ancient warlike gods of Ireland is felt everywhere. 

FROM:  The Death of Fionavar by Eva Gore-Booth

[Gore-Booth, Eva. The Death of Fionavar from The Triumph of Maeve. London: Erskine MacDonald, 1916.]

A WARRIOR

Men say the great heart of the Princess broke
For pity of the dead lying on the grass
After the battle.

MAEVE

Ye who have borne her hither on her shield
Tell now your tale. How did this thing befall
Fionavar?

A WARRIOR

She came at evening, running to the field,
Knowing naught of battle, or sights that appal
The strongest soul unused to the ways of war.
Thou knowest her heart was ever wont to burn
For any little grief. Therefore when she saw
The primroses all soaked in blood and the brown fern
Broken--Death that was servant to no gentle God
And everywhere pale faces wild with pain,
The blood-stained daisy cried out from the sod
Unto her soul, there on the stricken plain
For very pity she fell down and died.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FIONAVAR  by Ella Young (from  MARZILLIAN, 1938)

O flame blown out of Tir-nan-Oge,
White flame borne on enchanted air,
O heart's delight and heart's despair,
Fionavar! 0 Fionavar!

Draw the white shroud above her face
And cover up her close-shut eyes,
She will not hear a voice that cries
Fionavar! 0 Fionavar!

Love that none of us might win,
By strange lone ways to us you came
And lone you go, White Heart of Flame,
Fionavar! 0 Fionavar!

Pale face that held our hearts in thrall,
Pale face made paler by our love,
We could but draw the shroud above,
Fionavar! 0 Fionavar!

Frail hands no mortal lover kissed,
Fair-folded now as death beseems,
You hide away the Dream of Dreams,
Fionavar! 0 Fionavar!