Celtic fairy traditions
A. E. in the Fairy-Faith
The survey uses A. E.’s image of people entering Tir-na-nog during sleep, leaving a vacant bodily form behind. It is presented as visionary testimony and poetic framing. His voice also speaks as Aengus, inviting the listener beyond ordinary joy and sorrow. That passage makes the Otherworld a summons of desire and imagination, not merely a catalogue of creatures.
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In the sources
Principal account
ReportedThe survey uses A. E.’s image of people entering Tir-na-nog during sleep, leaving a vacant bodily form behind. It is presented as visionary testimony and poetic framing.
Further detail
ReportedHis voice also speaks as Aengus, inviting the listener beyond ordinary joy and sorrow. That passage makes the Otherworld a summons of desire and imagination, not merely a catalogue of creatures.
Context & interpretation
Evans-Wentz combines named informants, manuscript narratives, and his own psychical theory in a 1911 survey. This entry preserves those distinctions: collected belief and literary tradition do not establish the physical existence of an Otherworld.
Original passages
Source 1
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
apart.' — W. B. Yeats. ' Many go to the Tir-na-nog in sleep, and some are said to have remained there, and only a vacant form isOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 363
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0363
- Original scan leaf
- 364
- Recorded leaf number
- 364
- Current Reader position
- 359
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
in the air . . . "I am Aengus ; men call me the Young. I am the sunlight in the heart, theOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 428
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0428
- Original scan leaf
- 429
- Recorded leaf number
- 429
- Current Reader position
- 424
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Continue exploring
William Butler Yeats
Poet and guide whose local knowledge informs the fairy survey.
Same subject and traditionDouglas Hyde
Collector who distinguishes reliable folk testimony from conclusions drawn from it.
Same subject and traditionRobert Kirk
Minister whose fairy treatise and disappearance became part of Scottish tradition.