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Author
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Comment
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johngeorge72
Unregistered User
(1/9/05 8:46 am)
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poem about hare
Yeats uses the image of a Hare in his wonderful poem The Collar Bone of a Hare. It was explained to me that if one pierces a hole in the bone of a hare then one will get a glimpse into the fairy world. I can't remember where I came across this piece of information, but the poem provides a fairly good description of doing so. Interestingly he inverts the images, and is looking through the bone from the fairy kingdom back out into our world.
The poem.
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/10/05 12:18 pm)
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Re: poem about hare
I like the Yeats poem John George.
I don't know about hare bones (could be from Wentz's "Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries" which is probably available on the sacredtexts website?) but there is certainly a widespread British folk belief in the magic inherent in several different categories of holed objects e.g. naturally holed stones. There was a strong belief that the easiest way for an average person to see into otherworlds was to find a seer with second sight and persuade her/him to let the non-seer "see" through him/her. The usual method was for the seer to make a circle, for the non-seer to look through, by the seer crooking her/his arm with hand on hip but I don't know whether the non-seer looks in the same direction as the seer or towards him/her. Direction is often very important in these magical formulae because doing it the wrong way attracts the attention of the unseelie folk or a devil or bad luck or whatever misfortune the relevant belief system considered an appropriate consequence of transgression.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(1/10/05 12:36 pm)
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Re: poem
What an enigmatic poem that is! Thanks for sharing it. As for getting "the sight", I thought you were supposed to place your foot on the seer's foot and he put his hand on your head... It's interesting that all the islanders with the sight seemed to lose it when they emigrated to the US etc Why I don't know. Maybe they were more in tune with the natural world when they lived more simply.
Alison
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/10/05 3:41 pm)
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Re: poem
I've heard of that one too Alison. Do you think the foot to foot plus hand to head position is another kind of circle?
And if you've never read Robert Kirk's "Secret Commonwealth" then you should because I think it would appeal to you. Hmm... I wonder if it's on the web anywhere?
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/10/05 3:45 pm)
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Re: poem
Found it! Read Kirk's "Secret Commonwealth" here:
www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/
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