W.B. Yeats: The Kildare Pooka

With Gossamer Wings

A delicate being with gossamer wings. Is this what you imagine when you think of fairies? Well if so, you may be in for a shock. Varla Ventura, the author of “Fairies, Pookas, and Changelings” suggests something else. She claims: “The kingdom of the Fairy is one of vengeance, thievery, trickery and wild creatures who wish nothing more than to steal your child, drown you in the bog, or spoil your best Sunday shoes. The woods are lonely, dark, and deep. You have been warned.”

 Sidhe

The Irish or Gaelic word for fairy is sidhe (shee). These magical beings are said to dwell in a land not far away, but instead, one coexisting within our regular world. And they love nothing more than testing human nature. They lurk at crossroads. They bury themselves under the leaves. That twig, that snap behind you while out walking in a moonlit forest? Or, that clatter at your window, which you hope was only the wind? Well friends. That is the fairies at work.

 Solitary and Sociable

Quoting Ventura once more: “The scholar, the poet, and the magician alike can spend a lifetime seeking out these magical creatures and proof of their existence, only to be thwarted by the breaking of the dawn.”

William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet and foremost figure of 20th century literature, classified Irish fairies into two types: Solitary and Sociable. The sociable includes the merrow, who live and “haunt the sacred thornbushes and green raths.” However, the solitary fairy list is longer and includes the leprechaun, the banshee, and the pooka.

Following is a quote from Yeats’s 1888 book: “Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry.”

“The Pooka seems essentially an animal spirit, and speculative persons consider him the forefather of Shakespeare’s Puck. On solitary mountains and among old ruins he lives, having “grown monstrous with much solitude.”

 The Kildare Pooka

This month, I’m telling a story not of my own, similar to my sharing Dickens’s “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton” in December, but instead, one from Yeats’s “Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry.” The story is titled “The Kildare Pooka” and we begin Tuesday.

The photos I’ve selected are from the Riordan Mansion in Flagstaff, Arizona, since, if you know me, I’ve a thing with structures “of a certain age.”

 The Riordan Mansion

Timothy and Michael Riordan were Irish immigrants who operated a successful logging business, as well as contributing to the social and economic development of Flagstaff Arizona.

The two brothers married sisters, Caroline and Elizabeth, and the two families built a large mansion comprised of two separate homes connected by a common area of which they called the billiard room. Built in 1904, the home was designed by Charles Whittlesey, architect of the Grand Canyon’s El Tovar Hotel, and is considered a fine example of American Arts and Crafts architecture.

 Chapter One: A Big Manor House

There was once a big manor house in County Kildare, its owner often out of the country on business. Yet, the servants kept on all the same. But sometimes they would let things slip more than they would have had their master been at home. In particular, leaving the kitchen in disarray.

 Chapter Two: The Little Scullery Boy

Now when the servants retired to their beds, they often heard the banging of the kitchen door, the clattering of the fire-irons, the pots, the plates, and the dishes. And the longer this went on, the more terrified they became, none daring to enter the kitchen after the fire had died down.

One evening they stayed up, ever so long, keeping one another in heart by the telling of stories, of ghosts and of fairies, so late into the night that the smallest of them all, the little scullery boy, who was use to sleeping beside the horses, crawled beside the warm hearth and fell asleep, not waking until the rest had raked up the fire and scuttled off to bed.

 Chapter Three: No Ordinary Donkey

The little scullery boy awoke to the noise of the kitchen door opening. He peered out and saw a donkey, standing and yawning before the dormant fire. And he knew at once that he was no ordinary donkey…but a pooka.

 Chapter Four: Something Else

The scullery boy’s teeth began to chatter, and he thought “Certainly, he’s going to eat me!” But the fellow with the long ears and tail on him had something else in mind. Instead, he stirred up the fire, and then he brought in a pail of water from the pump and filled a big pot, placing it upon the fire. And then he laid himself down. So close that the scullery boy held his breath in fear.

 Chapter Five: As Well as Ever

At last the pot boiled. The pooka stood again, and in a flurry, began activity. Not a plate or a dish or a spoon in that kitchen he didn’t fetch and put into the pot. He washed and dried the whole hum’ of ‘em as well as ever a kitchenmaid. He then put everything back in their places, upon the shelves, and gave the floor a good sweeping. He finished, by raking the fire and walking out, and giving such a slap on the door that the boy thought the house couldn’t help but to tumble down.

 Chapter Six: Hullaballoo

Well, there was plenty hullaballoo the next morning when the poor scullery boy told his story. The servants spent the entire day talking of nothing else. One said one thing, and another said another. But a lazy scullery girl, named Kauth, said the wittiest thing of all.

 Chapter Seven: So Said So Done

“Musha!” said the scullery girl. “If the pooka does be cleaning up everything that way when we’ve asleep, what should we be slaving ourselves for, doing his work?”

“Them’s the wisest words you ever said, Kauth,” said another. “It’s meself won’t contradict you.”

So said so done. Not a bit of a plate or dish saw a drop of water that evening. Not a broom was laid on the floor. And everyone went to bed soon after sundown.

 Chapter Eight: As Fine as Fire

The next morning all was as fine as fire in the kitchen that the lord mayor might eat his dinner off the flags. It was great ease to the lazy servants, you may depend, and everything went on well until the small scullery boy said, “I will stay up and have a chat with the pooka.”

 Chapter Nine: Snug and Sautsy

The scullery boy waited by the fire, in plain sight this time, when the door was thrown open and the pooka appeared, marching right up to the fire. The boy didn’t open his mouth until the pooka had filled the pot, and the pooka was once again lying snug and sautsy before the fire.

 Chapter Ten: The Laziest Rogue

“Ah then, sir,” says the boy, at last, pitching up some courage. “If it isn’t taking a liberty, might I ask who you are, and why you are so kind as to do half of the day’s work for us every night?”

“No liberty at all,” says the pooka. “I’ll tell you. I was a servant in the time of your master’s father, and was the laziest rogue that ever was clothed and fed. So, when my time came for the other world, this is the punishment that was laid upon me: to come here and do all this labor every night and then go out and sleep in the cold.”

 Chapter Eleven: A Quilted Frieze Coat

“It isn’t so bad in fine weather,” continued the pooka. “But if you only knew what it is to stand with your head between your legs, facing the storm, from midnight to sunrise on a bleak winter night.”

The scullery boy, moved with sympathy for the creature, said, “And could we do anything for your comfort, my poor fellow?”

“Musha, I don’t know,” replied the pooka. “But I think a good quilted frieze coat would help to keep the life in me, them long nights.”

“Why then,” said the boy, “we’d be the ungratefullest of people if we didn’t feel for you and give you a coat.”

 Chapter Twelve: Pleased

The next night the boy waited for the pooka and delighted the creature by holding up a fine coat before him. Between both of them, they got the pooka’s four legs into the coat, buttoning it down the breast and belly. And the pooka was so pleased, he walked up to the glass to see how he looked.

 Chapter Thirteen: Good Night to You

“Well,” said the pooka. “It’s a long lane that has no turning, and I am much obliged to yourself and your fellow-servants. Yous have made me happy at last: good-night to you.”

As he was walking out, the boy cried, “Och! Sure you’re going too soon. What about the washing and sweeping?”

 Chapter Fourteen: Their Turn

“Ah,” said the pooka as he turned towards the gate. “You may tell the others that thye must now get their turn. My punishment was to last until I was thought worthy of a reward for the way I had done my duty. Now you’ll see me no more.”

And no more they did. And right sorry they were for being in such a hurry to reward that pooka.

The end.