Monday, September 29, 2014

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.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

"The world is my bone-cave, I shall not want..."

In 1971, American writer John Gardner (1934-1982) published his novel Grendel based upon the Beowulf tale and told in the voice of the monster.  I am still reading this book - or perhaps savoring it in some strange way.  Gardner was a professor of medieval literature at the University of Southern Illinois. As it should be -  this is a dark and disturbing novel. 
Illustration by J.R. Skelton, 1908.

The book and I found each other on the discard shelf of the Carmel, California public library.  Discarded. Unwanted. The book had not been checked out for quite some time. Reason enough to be rid of it. I understand the process though I often question the choices made.  And this novel in particular - discarded and unwanted though well-read. Coffee stains that do not hinder the read; smudged fingerprints marking the time when we cherished such writing.  Dark and disturbing, indeed, as a reflection of the decline of our culture.

I share a moment in the novel:

"It's good at first to be out in the night, naked to the cold mechanics of the stars.  Space hurls outward, falconswift, mounting like an irreversible injustice, a final disease. The cold night air is reality at last: indifferent to me as a stone face carved on a high cliff wall to show that the world is abandoned. So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age. I lie there resting in the steaming grass, the old lake hissing and gurgling behind me, whispering patterns of words my sanity resists. At last, heavy as an ice-capped mountain, I rise and work my way to the inner wall, beginning of wolfslopes, the edge of my realm. I stand in the high wind balanced, blackening the night with my stench, gazing down to cliffs that fall away to cliffs, and once again I am unaware of my potential: I could die. I cackle with rage and suck in breath."


Friday, September 5, 2014

Pairings #1



By AE (George William Russell 1867-1935

First he was her mentor and her spiritual guide.  Then he was her dear friend. Then she left him when she left Ireland. 

 Ella Young's words and AE's images...

More of Ella Young's mystical poetry and her retelling of old Irish tales are available in the anthology I co-edited with John Matthews and published by Skylight Press. 

At the Gates of Dawn: A Collection of Writings by Ella Young.











CLEENA
Pale, in the twilight, the crested waves are falling
On a lone shore where never a sea-bird strays;
Softly the twilight wind is calling, calling,
Calling for Cleena of the olden days.

Once a thousand lovers sang her praises,
Wove her name in chant and storied rann;
Cleena, for whose sake the sea-god raises,
Wave on wave, his crested foam-white clan.

Gods and heroes once the battle-gear uplifted
All for Cleena of the curling, golden head;
O’er her beauty now the dust has drifted,
The songs are silent, and her lovers dead.

Only where waves in shadowy foam are falling,
Falling, falling ever, with a sound of tears,
Earth and sea a vanished joy recalling
Mourn for Cleena and the long-forgotten years.

Mournful wind, your grief cannot avail her.
Sea-foam drifting, drifting through the night–
She has peace and silence, why bewail her?
Cleena! Cleena! Dead, forgotten quite!

 - Ella Young from Poems (1906)