From "The Celtic Twilight"

EATERS OF PRECIOUS STONES

When I put aside commonplace thoughts of profit and reputation and forget for a while the bustle of human affairs, I sometimes dream while fully awake. Some of these dreams are vague and shadowy; others are distinct, possessing an individuality as solid as the earth beneath my feet. Whether vague or vivid, they always follow their own course, and my will has scarcely the power to alter a single line of them. A dream has a will of its own. It drifts this way and that, changing its form as that will commands.

One day, dimly, I saw a bottomless pit encircled by a battlement. The pit was utterly black. Countless apes sat upon the battlement, eating precious stones from the palms of their hands. Some stones shone green and others crimson. The apes devoured them with an insatiable hunger.

I knew that I was looking upon the hell of the Celtic people—my own hell, the hell of the artist. I understood also that those who pursue beautiful and marvelous things with an endlessly ravenous desire lose both peace and form, until at last they fall into formlessness and vulgarity.

I have seen the hells of other people as well. In one of them I saw a spirit of the otherworld called Peter. His face was black and his lips white. In the pans of a strange double balance, he was weighing the evil deeds committed by invisible Shades against the good deeds they had left undone. I could see the pans rising and falling, but I could never see the many Shades gathered around Peter.

I have also seen hosts of demons in every conceivable shape. Some resembled fish, some serpents, some apes, and some dogs. They all sat around a dark pit like the one in my own hell, gazing fixedly at a moonlike reflection of the sky shining up from its depths.

THREE O’BYRNES AND THE EVIL SPIRITS

The Kingdom of Shadows contains immeasurable riches. There is more love there than upon the earth, more dancing than upon the earth, and more treasure than upon the earth. In the beginning, perhaps, the great world was made to satisfy human desire; but now it has grown old and sunk deep into decay. What wonder, then, if we should try to steal the treasures of the otherworld?

A friend of mine was once staying in a village near Slieve League. One day, while walking beside a fort called Cashel Nua, he saw a man come to the fort and begin digging. The man had a haggard face, his hair had never known a comb, and his clothes hung about him in tatters. My friend asked a farmer working nearby who the man was.

“That is the third O’Byrne,” the farmer replied.

Five or six days later, my friend heard the following story. A great treasure had lain buried within the fort since pagan times, guarded by a band of evil spirits. Yet it was ordained that one day the treasure should be discovered by the O’Byrne family and become theirs. Before that could happen, however, three O’Byrnes had to find the treasure and die. Two had already done so.

The first O’Byrne dug and dug until at last he caught sight of the stone coffin containing the treasure. But suddenly a huge, hairy, doglike creature came down the mountain and tore him to pieces. By the following morning the treasure had hidden itself deeper in the earth, beyond the sight of men.

Then came the second O’Byrne, who also dug and dug. At last he found the chest, raised its lid, and even saw the gold shining within. But in the next instant he saw something terrible. He went mad and soon died raving. The treasure then sank once more beneath the ground.

Now the third O’Byrne is digging. He believes that at the very moment he finds the treasure, he too will meet some dreadful death. Yet he also believes that the curse will then be broken and that the O’Byrne family will recover forever the wealth and rank it possessed in former times.

One of the neighboring farmers once saw the treasure. He found a rabbit’s shinbone lying in the grass. When he picked it up, he discovered that it had a hole in it. Looking through the hole, he saw heaps of gold beneath the ground. He hurried home for a spade, but when he returned to the fort he could no longer find the place where he had seen it.

QUEEN, QUEEN OF THE DWARFS, I HAVE COME

One night I was walking along a sandy shore in the far west with two companions: a middle-aged man who had spent his life far from the noise of traffic, and a young woman who was his relative. It was said that the young woman possessed the power to see every mysterious light that moved across the fields among the cattle.

We were speaking of the Forgetful People, a name sometimes given to the hosts of spirits. In the midst of our conversation, we came to a shallow cave among black rocks, a place famous for its hauntings. The cave was reflected in the wet sand.

I asked the young woman whether she could see anything, for I had many questions I wished to ask the Forgetful People. She stood quietly for several minutes. I watched her sink into a waking vision. The cold sea wind no longer troubled her, nor did the languid murmur of the sea disturb her attention.

I then called aloud upon the names of mighty spirits. At once she said that she could hear distant music within the rocks. Then she heard a confusion of voices and the stamping of feet, as though an unseen audience were applauding invisible musicians. Until then our other companion had been walking to and fro a few yards away. As he passed us, however, he suddenly said, “I can hear a child laughing somewhere beyond the rocks. I fear we shall be interrupted.” Yet there was no one there but ourselves. The spirits of the place had already begun to cast their enchantment over him as well.

His vision was suddenly strengthened by the young woman’s. She said that a great burst of laughter had joined the music, the confused talk, and the stamping feet. She also saw a bright light streaming from the cave, which now seemed deeper than before, and a company of dwarfs dressed in many colors, chiefly red, dancing to a tune she could not make out.

I told her to summon the Queen of the Dwarfs and command her to speak with us. No answer came to the young woman’s command, so I repeated the words aloud myself. Suddenly a beautiful, tall woman emerged from the cave. By then I too had fallen into a kind of vision—a state in which every flower of the air and every flower in the mirror assumes the solemn authority of inviolable truth. I could see the faint gleam of the woman’s golden ornaments and the dusky flowers set in her dark hair.

I told the young woman to ask this tall queen to arrange her companions in their proper divisions, for I wished to see them. Again, as before, I had to repeat the command myself.

They then came out of the cave and, if my memory does not deceive me, formed themselves into four companies. One company carried branches of mountain ash. Another wore collars that seemed to be made of serpents’ scales. I cannot remember their garments, for my attention was wholly captured by that radiant woman.

I asked her to tell the young woman whether these caves were the most frequented haunt of spirits in the neighborhood. Her lips moved, but we could not hear her answer. I commanded the young woman to place her hand upon the queen’s breast. After that, she understood the queen clearly. No, this was not the place where the spirits gathered in greatest numbers; farther on there was another place where still more assembled.

I next asked whether it was true that spirits carried human beings away, and, if so, whether they ever left another soul in place of the one they had taken.

“We change shapes,” the queen answered.

“Have any among you ever been born as human beings?”

“Yes.”

“Do I know anyone who was among you before entering this present life?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“You will not be permitted to know that.”

I then asked whether the queen and her companions might be nothing more than a dramatization of our own moods.

“The queen does not understand,” my friend replied, “but she says that spirits resemble human beings and generally do the same things that human beings do.”

I asked the queen many other questions—about her nature and about her purpose in the universe—but they seemed only to cause her pain.

At last, apparently unable to endure any more, she wrote these words upon the sand—not the sand sounding beneath our feet, but the sand of vision:

“Take heed: do not seek to know too much about us.”

Seeing that I had angered her, I thanked her for what she had shown and told us, and allowed her to return to the cave. A little while later the young woman awoke from her vision. Feeling once more the cold wind of this world, she began to shiver.

I have related these events as accurately as I can, adding no theory that might mar the story. In the end, all theories are pitiful things, and most of my own theories passed out of existence long ago.

More than any theory, I love the sound of the Gate of Ivory opening; and I believe that only those who have passed through its rose-scattering doorway can catch the distant radiance of the Gate of Horn. Perhaps it would bring us good fortune if we raised the cry that the astrologer Lilly uttered in Windsor Forest—REGINA, REGINA PIGMEORUM, VENI: “Queen, Queen of the Dwarfs, I have come”—and remembered with him that God visits little children in dreams.

Tall and dazzling queen, come, I pray, and let us see once more the dusky flowers adorning your dark hair.