A Trip to Tara with Ella Young

From Ella Young's memoirs:

Source: http://www.neheleniapatterns.com/english/fw230.html

    It is an expedition to Tara of the Kings that is dashing along the road from Dublin. It consists of two autos. The leading one, a bright yellow roadster flying two Sinn Fein flags, is piloted by the Countess Markievicz. At top speed it ricochets from bump to bump of a road made for horse vehicles. The expedition was organized by Gavin Arthur whose Irish ancestry claimed him as soon as he set foot in the country.  The second car belongs to him. His young and brilliant wife, Charlotte, is at the wheel repeating, bump for bump, the career of the yellow car in front. Beside her sits the young poet, Lyle Donaghy, somewhat pensive and a little sullen...The back seat holds Gavin and myself. We are exchanging views on Irish history and legend, with pauses to remonstrate with Charlotte on the pace of the car and the frequency of the bumps. Charlotte is unsympathetic...The car in front, every now and then, lets out a joyous blast of its motor-horn; sunshine flecks the road with tree-shadow; the rich pasture land in green undulations  whirls by. Consoled, placated, well-advised we progress from bump to bump...
    [At Tara] We fell to talking of the Stone of Destiny, the Lia Fail, in ancient times one of the Royal Treasures of Tara. On this Stone, according to an old chronicle, the high-kings of Ireland took the oath to their people. When a true and destined king stood with both feet upon the Stone it gave out a deep sound of approval. It roared. Where is the Lia Fail? Tradition, trustworthy or untrustworthy, maintained that Scottish kings borrowed the stone...until Edward the First of England raided Scotland and took the Stone to London. There it was fastened into the Coronation Chair, and English kings were crowned on it...
    “If we could get that Stone,” said the Countess, “the Royal Sovereignty might come back to Ireland.”
    ...I  thought, as I listened, of raids planned by Maud Gonne and Emer Moloney. I called to mind a day, years ago, when I chanced into AE’s house and found AE and Yeats discussing plans for the kidnapping of the Stone. Yeats had a bunch of grapes in his hand, and between mouthfuls detailed an elaborate plan of action. AE was a bit doubtful of its success. I was more than doubtful (we had not then young captains of the Irish Republican Army to rely on). I said if the Stone possessed the Royal Sovereignty, we might, if we could make a strong enough spiritual centre, occultly transport that power to Ireland. The Stone must follow...
    I watched the shadows lengthen on the ruined and desecrated ridges that marked the palace-sites of Tara...Tara must keep many memories, but I could not surprise one...Grass renews itself. The dream that held Ireland’s lovers, renews itself. From ruin and disaster it struggles back to the light: it burgeons a-fresh...
    I knew that I would never visit Tara again.

From: Flowering Dusk: Things Remembered Accurately and Inaccurately by Ella Young. Longmans, Green and Co., 1945.

On a Glimpse of Castle Island

W.B. Yeats, Maud Gonne, and (for a time) A.E. were involved in a magical project usually referred to as "The Celtic Mysteries."  There is no documentation to show that Ella Young was ever involved, though she knew all about what they were doing. How Ella's magical endeavors influenced Yeats, and perhaps vice-versa, has yet to be shown.

Photo by Franc.c  https://www.flickr.com/photos/francz/

Here is how I imagine the moment when Yeats first glimpsed the place that inspired his Mysteries. 

EXT: IRELAND.  A lLARGE LAKE.  SUMMER 1892 - MORNING.

YEATS and DOUGLAS HYDE, 35, a tall bearded man of great dignity and presence, are boating together on Lough Key in County Roscommon. A heavy mist rises from the lake.

Hyde rows with great ease and precision.

Yeats leans back in the boat and gazing up toward the sky.

YEATS

There are forces, mighty forces, that can do more for the revolution than my words will ever accomplish alone!

HYDE

Your occult experiments are a distraction - it is your poetry that should fill your days - and your nights!  

Hydes’ voice deepens.

Be careful of what you are asked to sacrifice so that you may gain this magic!

At that moment Yeats turns toward the lakes' center, watching as the wind sweeps away the mist to reveal a small island.  

As he sees the abandoned Castle on the island he remembers Gonne's words from an earlier time.

FLASHBACK - EXT.  IRELAND. A RUGGEDLY BEAUTIFUL SPOT FULL OF OLD STONES AND TREES. - MORNING  

Gonne and Yeats walk together, hands clasped.

GONNE

If only we could make contact with the hidden forces of the land it would give us strength for the freeing of Ireland.  The land will help us expel our enemy.  England, like the ancient Fir Bolg, will flee when our true gods empower us!

The wind on the hill blows through Gonne's dark hair and her eyes shine with her passion.

EXT. THE LAKE.

GONNE

(V.O.)

I see a tower in the middle of a lake, a shrine of Irish tradition where only those who dedicate their lives to this great land can go. It will be built of stone and decorated only with the Jewels of the Tuatha Dé Danann!

Yeats stands up in the boat and turns to Hyde.

YEATS

There! That of which my muse has spoken!  An obsession more constant than anything but my love itself is the need for mystical rites ... to reunite the perception of the spirit, of the divine, with natural beauty ... 

HYDE

Sit down, man - you'll topple us both over!  You are right about one thing - this land is holy and each of us must find our way to serve that holiness.

Yeats sits reluctantly and looks at Hyde. His voice rises with excitement.

YEATS

This is my destiny, Hyde. There are those who will serve with guns, and others with speeches, but as I serve magic so will magic serve Ireland!

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The Ballad of the Fiddler

Photograph © Denise Sallee 2010

Found an old book on my shelf today that I think must have been my mother's. She went through a spell of collecting old children's books that reminded her of the ones she had owned as a child but lost in the Depression. This book is entitled My Poetry Book: An Anthology of Modern Verse for Boys and Girls and is copyrighted 1934. The poems are organized by themes and one of the themes is "Have You Ever Seen a Fairy?"  I was surprised and very pleased to see one of Ella Young's close friends has a poem in this section - Seumas O'Sullivan. He was born in 1879 as James Sullivan Starkey and became an editor for The Dublin Magazine. He and his wife, artist Estella Solomons, were nationalists and when I read Ella's letters to him (held at Trinity College Library) I realized they were written in some kind of code - or so it seemed to me at the time.  She called him "Comrade" a name she used for others - those who she felt were aligned with her in her battle for Ireland's  freedom (for Ireland's soul) and for her lifelong quest for Beauty. Ella wrote to Seumas about the High King's Daughter and I puzzled over to whom they might have been referring. Was it Maud Gonne? Or was it the personification of Ireland?

So here is Ella's friend and dear comrade evoking a world they both understood.


The Ballad of the Fiddler 
by Seumas O'Sullivan

He had played by the cottage fire
Till the dancing all was done,
But his heart kept up the music
When the last folk had gone.

So he came through the half-door softly
And wandered up the hill,
In the glow of his heart's desire
That was on the music still.

And he passed the blackthorn thicket,
And he heard the branches groan,
As they bowed beneath the burden
Of the white fruit of the moon.

And he came to the fairy circle
Where none but the wise may sit:
And blindness was on him surely
For he sat in the midst of it.

And maybe his heart went dreaming,
Or maybe his thoughts went wide,
But he took his battered old fiddle
And he took the bow from his side.

And he said, "I will play them such music
As never a fairy heard."
He said, "I will play them the music
I stole from the throat of a bird."

And the sound of his lilt went straying
By valley and stream and sedge
Till the little white stars went dancing
Along the mountain's edge.

And things came out of the bushes
And out of the grassy mound
And joined their hands in a circle
And danced to the fiddle's sound.

And quicker and sweeter and stranger
The notes came hurrying out
And joined with a shriek and a whistle
In the dance of the Goblin Rout.

And all night long on the green lands
They danced in a 'wildered ring.
And every note of the fiddle
Was the shriek of a godless thing.


And when the winter morning
Came whitely up the glen,
The Fiddler's soul fled whistling
In the rout of the Fairy Men.