Irish Jesuit Province

On Woods
Author(s): Alice Furlong
Source: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 42, No. 488 (Feb., 1914), pp. 72-78
Published by: Irish Jesuit Province
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20503512
Accessed: 20-01-2020 21:49 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
The Irish Monthly

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [ 72 3

ON WOODS
By ALICE FURLONG

THERE was once a boy in class, and he read out of his

school-book: "There was a wood -" At that, the
master, who wished to train his scholars in observation,
stopped the boy to ask: " What kind of a wood was it ? " The
boy made answer: " Please, sir, it was the usual kind of a wood."
An American author, sufficiently great to have known better,
commends this answer as comprehensive almost to the degree
of an aphorism. We, on the other hand, contend that the boy
must have been a city boy, with a starved imagination at that,
and submit that his answer was stupid in the extreme.
There is no such thing as the usual kind of wood, for woods
are of many kinds. Not only are they of many kinds with
Tegard to their physical features-as woods of oak, broad
gladed to the sun; pinewoods, where it is ever twilight; windy
mountain coppices of birch and willow; or the " sally-gardens "
of Irish song-but they vary still more as to their associations
in the mind of man. There is, first of all, to the age of Innocence,
the enchanted wood. Such was my own first idea of a wood:
it meant mystery, expectation, wonder. Far, far away in the
shadowy past, I can see a group of little children gathered about
a great turf fire in a country kitchen. A white-haired, rosy
cheeked woman sits on her sugan chair in their midst. Grave
of look, and slow-voiced, she tells her tale, made when the world
was young, haply, or else fashioned in the Land o' Dreams.
There is no light but the firelight in the comfortable, sleepy
place, and sometimes the little children nod their dusky heads,
mingling dream with dream. The old, deliberate voice recites
the tale: " And towards evening they lost their way; and when
night was falling they came to a wood." I remember that I
used not think at all of a veritable wood that was without us
there on the hillside, but would call up some vision of very leafy
dusk; very ancient brown boles; some still, unpeopled place
where the wind never wakened, where no bird sang, where it
was always fall of night and never dawn, where we would pre
sently " see a light from us," and, following, be led, mayhap, to
the robbers' lone den where heaped-up jewels glistened under
withered leaves, or, in better case again, to the enchanted castle

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ON WOODS 73

with a charm on every lintel and a

the golden-haired captive within, u
stepmother.
The veritable wood was outside
that the child, no less than the " o
dim understanding that such tal
we reach only by the gateways
real wood outside I have, howev
association. Many a time in afte
of the Gael, and coming upon t
half charm, that are spoken agai
I have recalled the old Irishwoman
mind whole and entire into the
winter-twilight, and storm high-k
and beech without, she was won
" The Spirits o' the Wind are cal
the weird belief with the very wo
was indeed but the Celticism na
child-that trend of the race-mi
magic world of giant and wizard
should be remote, visionary, over
that another world invisible, of
jocund Faery, should be hard agains
and the ear hearkens, and the han
There is the enchanted wood, t
And again we have the woods of O
of early English ballad and of th
Sherwood and Barnesdale, where
men blow their silver warbling bu
see them trooping past, all in dou
archeres " bearing stout bows of
cloth-yard long." The Earl mak
Marian laughs and shows her w
wench. The rich are spoiled of
spared, and often succoured. Th
" that tilleth with his plough." W
leaves and boughs," the outlaws

. . . set till their dinere,

Of bread and wine they had eno
And numbles of the deer.

Swans and pheasants they had f

And fowls of the rivere.
There fail6d never so little a bir
That ever was bred on brere.

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 74 THE IRISH MONTHLY

Here we have wildness, but no mystery, no m

or black. Everything is clear, as likewise in the Fore
and in the greenwood of " The Nut-brown Maid." P
shown to us, but we get no visions. The trees are d
the vague, nameless leafage of the enchanted w
rugged English oak everywhere spreads golden-gre
overhead. Here is one
whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along the wood.
Then we have another
. . . whose boughs are mossed with age,
And high-top bald with dry antiquity.
Titania's elves hide in the acorn-cups. Orlando
under an oak, like a dropped acorn." He hangs "
hawthorns and elegies on brambles." There is la
feasting, hunting and hawking. All the dells are
by the light-o'-day folk. Birds sing-cuckoo, and
and mavis. The forester is not silent:
Who loves to lie with me
Under the greenwood tree,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

A homely cheer, a medley of music, hearty sunli

through green boughs on banks where the violet n
the influences that pervade the park-like English w
are the woods of a prosperous people, finely but not
imaginative, appreciative of the good things of life
of human company.
Of far other sort are the woods of Border Ball
throw shadow, not the elfin twilight of the forest
ment, but void black shadow, dark as death: the
wonder in it when we bear in mind the bloody foray
seen in the course of the centuries-long feud betwe
Scot " and " false Southron." For the " brawling
Arden we have " the wan water" of Tyne, or of
ghostly, drowning river through which the false
must ride with the lover she has slain. Even the
that concern themselves with these woods are sad.
The oak and the ash and the bonnie birchen tree,
They are all blooming fair in the North Countree
but the singer is lamenting himself afar from hom

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ON WOODS 75,

that tell of direr things the gloo

itself. " Down by the greenwood
takes the life of her two innoce
sair." And it would seem to be da
the castle wa'," and saw the two l
The trend towards fatalism (whic
saying as, " Where a man's grave w
go ") is a darkness visible in those
Omens and portents are of n
" drearie dream," Lord Livingst
greenwood tree," but " frae the g
for there he fought Lord Rothma
And bluidy was the strife,
Lang eer the noontide Mass w
They baith were twined o' life

Notwithstanding that the Dougl

dreamed a drearie dream
Ayont the Isle o' Skye,
I saw a deid man win a fight,
And I think that man was
he goes into the fray, and in so
stark under the brier-bush. " J
May morn to hunt the deer;
When Johnie's mother got wo
Her hands for dule she wrang
"Oh, Johnie, for my venison
To the greenwood dinna gang

He goes, however, but is himself

who come upon him sleeping with
the last verse of the ballad runs,
Now Johnie's gude bend bow i
And his gude grey dogs are sl
And his body lies dead in Durr
And his hunting it is done.

As in the English woods, ther

hawk" may " sing on the floweri
near a wan water, chants its do
cherously murdered and cast in t
his breast to keep him down, but
flickering over him will tell whe
the " Twa Corbies," black as bl
VOL. xu.-No; 488 6

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 76 THE IRISH .M1ONTHLY
to feast on the body of the dead young knight. They croa
together:
His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's away with another mate,
So shall we make our dinner sweet,
Our dinner's sure, our feasting free,
Come and dine 'neath the greenwood tree!
flow 'far a cry is this from the throstle and the cuckoo, and
"oozel-cock with orange-tawny bill "-from the pleasant feast
in Sherwood, and Robin Hood's lilt of "three merry-men, three
merry-men, three merry-men are we !
The oak and the ash, the hazel-bush and the " slae-tree,"
grow in these woods, but the birch flourishes over all. " Fair
MIargaret, rare MAargaret, Margaret of veritie " follows through
the green forest after the ghost, and it bids her
Plait a wand o' the bonnie birk,
And lay it on my breast,
And shed a tear upon my grave,
And wish my saul gude rest.
Then we have the Irish " sally-gardens," and those ragged,
thin woods of rowan and silver elm that cling to misty mountain
sides. For the rest, the despoiler has left us well-nigh without
shelter. We must go back to the Gaelic poems for " the fresh
wooded glens of Orrery "; for " Creeve nee Gweena " in her
forest-hut, with the magic music ever-flowing around her; for
the " slenderraceful " trees by the Mague dolorously lamenting
the dead singer; for the girl in " the house amid the woods "
bidding her lover beware of climbing the tall quicken, since the
glowing clusters, though on the topmost branch, are bitter in
the mouth. Only the old names stand to tell of " the round
green woods " where the wolf ranged and the Rapparee, priced
with a like price-" Kylemore," the great wood; " Durrow,"
the oak-wood; " Kyleanoe," the wood of the white-thorn.
"There were trees in Tyrconnel," gays the bard. "The Sprig
of Shillelagh," " The green woods of Slew," live in the burdens of
our ballads. But all hid the priest and the rebel " from the eyes
of the red-coats and their spies," and so they went under axe
and fire. Song and ballad clung where they could. There is
the tale of the "Churchyard Bride," the " love-whisperer " who
gave the kiss deadly-sweet to Sir Tirlough in the graveyard " by
the bonnie green woods of Killeevy."
There's charm&d music upon her tongue,
Killeevy, 0 Killeevy!
Such beauty, warm and bright and young,
Was never seen the maids among
By the bonnie green wood of Killeevy !

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ON WOODS 77
The " sally-gardens " still turn th
wind:
Down by the sally-gardens
My love and I did meet,
and then,
She bade me take love easy,
As the leaf grows on the tree,
But I was young and foolish
And with her did not agree.
When the woods were gone, the lone tree kept their murmur,
and gave it to the wind that went past the poet's ear, which is
ever the " Cluas le h-eisteacht," the " ear of listening ": and
we get such ballads as " The Fairy-Thorn." Here we have the
maidens " in their kirtles green " seeking the Fairy-thorn
They are glancing thro' the glimmer of the quiet eve,
Away in milky wavings of neck and ancle bare.
The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave,
And the crags in the ghostly air.

They come to the rowans and the old white-thorn tree:

The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,
Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem,
And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go.
Oh, never carolled bird like them!
But " dreamier grows the gloaming and stills the haunted
braes "; sudden awe comes upon the maidens. They have
fallen under the Fairy-power:
For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath,
And from the mountain ashes, and the old white-thorn between,
A power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,
And they sink down together on the green.

Lying thus, they " hear the silky footsteps of the silent
Fairy-crowd," and feel sweet Anna Grace being drawn away,
but dare not look:
For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies,
Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze,
And neither fear nor wonder can ope their quivering eyes,
Or their limbs from the cold ground raise.

The ballad ends with,

They pined away and died within the year and day,
And ne'er was Anna Grace seen again.
This is the sorrow and mysticism of the Irish Gael, melan
choly as his kindred of the Scottish Border, but wilder in his
conception of the unseen. For the Lowland Scot, dwelling hard

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
78 THE IRISH MONTHLY

by the Northern Saxon, and not always in hate but

in luckless love, could not but in some sort fall
fluence of the Teutonic mind. And thus we find so
intense " humanness " of the Teuton in the ballads o
Scot. The Queen of Elfland, indeed, comes to
Ercildoune, but the grave opens far oftener than the
and " Clerk Saunders " craves to have his troth giv
him or he cannot lie at rest, and the murdered b
their false mother. Not so in Erin. The ghost come
Power, and it is made a wonder of, but the " Li
(the Fairy-follower), whether Cleena of Desmond,
Thomond, or the Shee-women of Cnoc Firinn, th
the beginning on the men of Erin to come with the
Land of Gold," where the colour of the primrose is
where there is no withering of age, nor chill d
Murrough, son of Brian the King, in battle with th
by the shivering reed-beds of Cluantarf, to Paidin t
coming home from the fair where he has drunk over
" brandy strong," these Daughters of the Mist hold
sons of the Gael their shadowy fair arms, and the
stars glimmers in their eyes of enchantment.
In how many tones has the " Song of the WVoods
to us ! And yet we have left so many, many woods
the " Black Forest " of high Germanie; the mys
woods of the New World; the thickets of olive, gre
heights of the Grecian Isles; the myrtle and orange
sun-browned Spain: and all of them with their own
ear of man, and every man, as when the Spirit brea
in his own tongue!
ALICE FURLONG.

THE OLD MIRROR

RONDELET
THIS mirror's face
Has long-forgotten splendours glassed;
This mirror's face
Man's pride has shown, and Woman's grace,
And glorious Youth that wanes so fast
No sign remains to show they passed
This mirror's face!
JOHN J. HAYDEN.

This content downloaded from 51.37.149.64 on Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:49:58 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms