Welcome back, folks, to another episode of Scholar Minor. I hope that all of you had a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day.
March 17th was originally intended for quiet prayer in dedication to the patron Catholic saint of the Emerald Isle. Over time, however, especially in the United States, many St. Patrick’s Day festivities took on a distinctively more celebratory personality.
The first St. Patrick’s Day parades gained popularity in the 19th century, when Irish immigrants faced constant abuse and descrimination upon their arrival in the United States. St. Patrick’s Day became a day of celebration: to combat anti-immigrant hostility, unify Irish communities, and celebrate their cultural heritage together.
Tonight, we’ll be taking a look at some of that cultural heritage. Irish mythology and folklore traditions are incredible in both their variety and vastness - so this week, we’ll be introducing ourselves to three important spirits of Irish legend: Púcai, Banshees, and Leprechauns.
"He is a mule-like animal in appearance and character. I need hardly say he is never seen in daytime; but at night he may be met with on dark and lonesome roads, where it is his particular delight to waylay the belated traveller, and much against the said traveller's will, give him a long and by no means pleasant ride.
Many a man, staying out at night, card-playing or drinking, like Tam-'o-Shanter, in spite of the advice, the warnings, and the scoldings of his wife, has been met on the road by the pooka, hoisted on the pooka's back, and taken over miles and miles of a country entirely unknown to him, and finally left sore and wounded on the roadside at cock-crow in the morning."
The creature, described here by author Lilian Daly in 1901, is the Puka - one of the most well-known beasties of Irish folklore.
The puca, plural pucai, is an ancient Celtic shapeshifter inhabiting the Irish wilderness. Though it can sometimes appear as a human, a fox, a rabbit, a dog, a raven, or any other creature it desires to mimic - its most common form is as a black horse. In its equine guise the Puka will entice an unsuspecting human to climb onto its back - after which, it will give the victim a harrowing ride across the countryside before depositing them - traumatized but unharmed - many miles from home.
In Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, a collection compiled and edited by legendary Irish poet William Butler Yeats in 1888, we are informed that,
“On solitary mountains and among old ruins he lives, ‘grown monstrous with much solitude,’ and is of the race of the nightmare.”
You may be thinking that the puka sounds like bad news, and that's an understandable conclusion to draw - though sometimes, the Puca brings happy tidings. In fact, the Puka is sometimes known to have frank conversations about future events - good and bad - with those it encounters travelling through its domain.
While Irish folklore tells us that the Puka enjoys tormenting the mortals living nearby, it is considered a benevolent spirit, and never seriously harms the objects of its mischief. The month of November is sacred to the Puka, and it has a close association with the ancient harvest festival Samhain.
Yeats includes a folktale about the Puka, translated from the original Irish by Douglas Hyde. The story tells of a piper ambushed by a puka in the wilderness. The creature gives the piper otherworldly musical ability, and promises to pay him for his trouble if he will play at a feast at the house of the Banshee that evening.
The piper agrees and accompanies the Puka, who upon their arrival, tells the piper to play his music for the Banshees in attendance. Hyde describes,
“The piper played up, and the old women began dancing and they were dancing till they were tired. Then the Puka said to pay the piper, and every old woman drew out a gold piece, and gave it to him. ‘By the tooth of Patric!’ said he, ‘I’m as rich as the son of a lord!’”
Following a successful evening, the Puka rather unceremoniously dumps the piper back in town, leaving him with only:
“You have two things now that you never had before - you have sense and music.”
The piper kept his otherworldly musical talent, and was the best piper in county Galway until the end of his days.
"And sometimes, when the moon
Brings tempest upon the deep,
And roused Atlantic thunders from his caverns in the west,
The wolfhound at her feet
Springs up with a mighty bay,
And chords of mystery sound from the wild harp at her side,
Strung from the hearts of poets;
And she flies on the wings of tempest
Around her shuddering isle,
With grey hair streaming:
A meteor of evil omen,
The spectre of hope forlorn,
Keening, keening!"
This harrowing description of our next creature comes from the poem “The Banshee”, written by Irish poet and friend of W.B. Yeats, John Todhunter.
Unfortunately throwing feasts for other spirits and hiring entertainment is not the Banshee of folklore’s usual behavior. The Banshee is usually depicted as a female spirit, dressed in a shroud or cloak, whose weeping heralds impending death. Banshee comes from the Old Irish "ben side", meaning "woman of the fairy mound". One variety of Banshee is called the Bean Nighe, or "washing woman", and she can be found washing bloodstained rags in wild streams in neighboring Scotland.
Some legends say that Banshees are the spirits of women who died in childbirth, while others suggest that she isn't a human spirit at all - instead she is a truly supernatural creature. Either way, the Banshee is an incredibly popular and influential spirit in Irish folklore.
Banshees are often associated with the tumuli, singular tumulus, which are burial mounds that can be found dotting the Irish countryside. These mounds - also known as barrows or kurgans - can date back as far as the neolithic era in some places, and they appear in various forms throughout the world.
Tumuli were formed by piling stone and earth on top of a gravesite, and the mounds were gradually reclaimed by their natural environment. Banshees were believed to frequent these places - which have a pretty spooky reputation - consider the Barrow Downs in J.R.R. Tolkein's Middle Earth, for example.
The Banshee legends are often also associated with an ancient funeral tradition known as "keening" - which, as you may recall, is a term we encountered in our snippet of Todhunter's "The Banshee" poem. Keening was a grieving ritual, consisting of practiced loud wails and weeping, and it was common in ancient Irish and Scottish communities.
Those funeral attendees who practiced keening were not always relatives or friends of the deceased - sometimes they were hired specifically for their tearful talents. So given that hearing the sounds of human keening is indicative of death and sorrow, it’s not difficult to imagine how the wails of a Banshee would strike fear into the heart of a lonesome traveller.
Of course, no St. Patrick’s Day visit into the world of Irish folklore would be complete without the legends of the Leprechaun. Representations of the Leprechaun are common enough these days, and their legends are pretty recent in the historical sense. In old Irish mythology we don’t see the Leprechaun mentioned, but the popularity of the little creature grew rapidly in more recent history - helped along, in part, by the attention of William Butler Yeats.
The Leprechaun is a fairy, described by Yeats as “withered, old, and solitary”. He adds that “they dress with all unfairy homeliness, and are indeed . . . slouching, jeering, mischievous phantoms.” Sounds a little different than the Leprechauns we encounter in popular culture today.
They were frequently connected with mischief and pranks - some of their relatives, the Cluricaune, were even known to sneak into cellars and drink all the alcohol they could find - occasionally startling hapless homeowners. Interestingly, the Leprechaun's signature green get-up is a recent trait. Initially he wore red - as described by Irish novelist Louise Frances Field in 1887, the original Leprechaun was a "little red-coated fairy-cobbler."
Yes, the Leprechauns of folklore were shoemakers, who - over their infinite lifetimes of cobbling - became extremely wealthy. They were known to hide their riches in secret places - hence the Leprechaun's “pot of gold”. The Leprechaun’s stashes of gold were, of course, unavoidably tempting to mortal man.
As described by Samuel Lover in 1873, the Leprechaun "[possesses] the power of bestowing unbounded wealth on whoever can keep him within sight until he s weary of the surveillance and gives the ransom demanded; and to this end the object of the mortal who is so fortunate as to surprise one, is to seize him, and never withdraw his eye from him, until the threat of destruction forces the Leprechaun to produce the treasure."
Poor little guy. If people were after my gold all the time, I’d probably become - as Yeats puts it - “slouching and jeering”, too!
Lover also gives us a description that varies pretty significantly in tone from that of Yeats, telling us that the Leprechaun's "taste as to occupation is very humble, for he employs himself in making shoes, and he loves retirement, being fond of shady nooks where he can sit alone, and pursue his avocation undisturbed."
To wrap things up on this St. Patrick’s Day, I’d like to share a wonderful 1888 poem by Yeats called “The Lake Isle of Innisfree":
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core."
That wraps things up for us this episode; I hope you enjoyed. I can’t wait to dive deeper into Irish mythology and folklore in future - especially focusing on the fairies. Perhaps once springtime arrives we’ll pay the Emerald Isle another visit.
My bibliographical references, as always, are in the show notes - where you can also find a link to my website, www.ursaminorcreations.com. You can check out past episodes and more content there.
Also, if you have any questions, topic recommendations, or would just like to say hello - you can reach me by emailing ursaminorcontact@gmail.com. Please feel free to send a note along - I would love to hear from you, and to learn a little about the wonderful folks who have been listening!
Thanks for supporting Scholar Minor, and I’ll talk to you again very soon.