Celtic fairy traditions
William Butler Yeats
Evans-Wentz records visiting fairy places with Yeats at Coole Park, including a river that disappears underground and a hidden pool. The poet’s role connects literary interest with a specific inhabited landscape. The survey quotes Yeats on the closeness of the human world and the world after death. His statement frames fairy belief as immediate to home, rather than belonging only to a remote legendary age.
Also known as W. B. Yeats
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In the sources
Principal account
ReportedEvans-Wentz records visiting fairy places with Yeats at Coole Park, including a river that disappears underground and a hidden pool. The poet’s role connects literary interest with a specific inhabited landscape.
Further detail
ReportedThe survey quotes Yeats on the closeness of the human world and the world after death. His statement frames fairy belief as immediate to home, rather than belonging only to a remote legendary age.
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
I was privileged to take with Mr. William B. Yeats on Lady Gregory's estate at Coole Park, near Gort (County Galway) ; for Mr.Open this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 462
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0462
- Original scan leaf
- 463
- Recorded leaf number
- 463
- Current Reader position
- 458
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
this world and the world we go to after deathOpen 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
Continue exploring
A. E. in the Fairy-Faith
The poet A. E. supplies a visionary language for the Otherworld.
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.