William Butler Yeats

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W. B. Yeats was an Irish poet who recerived the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 as the first Irishman so honored. The Nobel Committee described his work as "always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation."

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Today I finally read the first and greatest classic of vampire literature: Dracula! What a fascinating read, and so well-written even though the language seems rather antiquated now. (I found it particularly lovely how commonly people would be described as being "sweet" - speaking sweetly, or with a sweet look in their eye, or any number of sweet things - and this heedless of gender. What a great word!)

My favorite character was definitely Van Helsing, not because probably the most famous vampire anime is called Hellsing (and the main vampire, Alucard, is a fascinatingly creepy person), but because he was such a genuine, passionate, yet logical person. It was he, more than anyone else, that brought together the group of people going up against Count Dracula, he who spurred them on and cautioned them and was both wise and passionate in his speech and manner.

Interesting also was finding out that the entire story is told through diary entries and letters, something I hadn't realized before starting the book. If you haven't read it, you can do so here! It's quite a compelling read.

Celtic Songs

When I was younger, I fondly remember listening to a tape called "Women of the World - Celtic". The tape had a lovely compilation of very fine Celtic songs, some sung in English and others in Irish (Gaeilge).

Available on Amazon!

Some kind soul uploaded the songs onto youtube, and I was delighted to find them there! Here's the playlist for Celtic I, and the one for Celtic II. The songs are all wonderful, though of course some are more fond to me than others. (I happen to love Sovay, It Ain't Funny, Home Again In Eireann, Against The Wind, Treasure Island, Dulaman, and Song For Ireland. If you're curious who any of the songs are by, just ask and I'll tell you the artist names if I know them!)

Recently I went hunting for some of these songs/artists on Spotify (a platform for listening to music, for those who don't know) and was frustrated to have to search long and hard before finally finding the version of Dulaman I had grown up with. You see, some of these songs are traditional ones, with either varying text or tune, and particularly of Dulaman there are quite a few different versions! All beautiful, to be sure, but not the one I was looking for.

Other nice versions are by Celtic Woman (a group with beautiful female voices) and Anuna (whose rendition reminds slightly of a Gregorian chant, as they are an all male group), but the version I was looking for was the one by Altan - and thankfully, I did find it in the end.

Basically, Dulaman is about a young man come to court a young woman, but rather than refer to the humans as such, they are called seawead - Irish seaweed (dúlamán gaelach), to be precise. You can read the lyrics here, and listen to the song here; it really is a beautiful song, and I find myself singing it to myself at the oddest of times.

If you have a Spotify account, feel free to check out my playlist of Celtic songs here!