II Be ready to give brief retelling of the text, using Appendix 1.

I Reading

a) Read the following text

Put down the unknown words (with their transcription and translation) into your vocabulary. Be ready to translate the text orally.

b) Find and write out all irregular verbs given in the text. Remember three forms of them.

Irish Beliefs. An other world (Part II)

Few country people up to the last century would categorically refuse the existence of fairies, or ignore the rules governing relations between fairies and humans, and belief at some level persisted strongly up to the mid-twentieth century in many rural areas. Young boys were often dressed as girls because it was widely feared that fairies might steal them away. Sometimes the fairies stole the babies out of their cradles, and left one of their own in its place. Such a creature was called a ‘changeling’, and spoke and looked like a little old man, though lying in the cradle like a baby. To protect against this calamity it was usual to lay a metal bar across an unattended cradle, as the fairies are believed to fear metal. They also fear fire, and many an unfortunate supposed changeling was threatened with burning wood or even put over a fire in an attempt to drive away the fairy and bring back the human child.

There is one night of the year, Halloween, when it is possible to rescue anyone held by the fairies. Halloween is one of the four principal festivals of the Celtic calendar, and marks the transition from the light to the dark half of the year. On this night alone the doors between our world and the other stand wide open. The custom of children dressing up as witches, ghosts or devils, and going from door to door looking for treats, has its origin in the belief that spirits wander the earth on that night, and should be placated with food, drink or whatever they want. Equally, the local ‘fairy fort’ where your loved on is being held can be attacked, but you need a lot of luck and wit as well as courage to effect a successful rescue.

You need a great deal of the same qualities to outsmart a leprechaun, a little old shoemaker who spends his days mending shoes for the fairies. The gold they pay him is hidden in a large ‘crock’ or bowl, under the roots of an old tree. If you ever see a leprechaun, catch him and don’t take your eyes off him, no matter what tricks he plays to distract you. If you can fulfill this one condition, he is bound by the laws of leprechauns to lead you to his crock of gold.

Anyone may happen to meet fairies or leprechauns but only certain old Irish families hear the banshee (literally ‘fairy woman’). When members of such a family hear her heartbreaking cries they know one of the family is dying. Percy French, a popular songwriter at the turn of the century, wrote the lovely lament “Gorthamona”, in memory of his beloved wife, who died young. It begins with birdsong in the blackthorn tree, but soon:

“Long, long ago in the woods of Gorthamona I thought the wind was singing around the blackthorn tree. But Oh! It was the banshee, who was crying, crying, crying. And I knew my love was dying far away from me.”

From the 16th century on Ireland experienced an intensive process of colonisation and anglicisation, which appeared to be virtually complete by the 18th century. However, unseen and unheard by the Anglo-Irish rulers, a ‘hidden Ireland’ continued to exist. Towards the end of the 19th century, this culture was rediscovered alive and well, living in the oral tradition of the often illiterate poor people of the countryside. There were still many traditional storytellers, ‘seanachies’, enriching people’s minds with their knowledge of their race through a vast repertoire of myths, legends and other stories, as their ancestors had done for thousands of years.

One begins to understand why the rural Irish were able to maintain a full sense of themselves despite abject material poverty and a total lack of freedom. A race of supernatural beings, the fairies, leading a parallel life to theirs, kept them alert and responsive to every time, place and situation. As Catholics they had the promise of eternal life and pride in their mythologised saints, and their memories contained an imaginative treasure trove of myth, legend and history of their race which clothed their landscape in visions of beauty and grandeur, and made the lives of heroes and heroines of a bygone world seem as real as the falling rain and the potatoes growing in the fields. They lived in both this and an ‘other-world’.