Stories of Red Hanrahan

by W.B. Yeats

[...] But the little red fox murmured, 'O do not pluck at his rein, He is riding to the townland That is the world's bane.' When their hearts are so high That they would come to blows, They unhook their heavy swords From golden and silver boughs: But all that are killed in battle Awaken to life again: It is lucky that their story Is not known among men. For O, the strong farmers That would let the spade lie, Their hearts would be like a cup That somebody had drunk dry. Michael will unhook his trumpet From a bough overhead, And blow a little noise When the supper has been spread. Gabriel will come from the water With a fish tail, and talk[...].

Genres: Short Stories, Ireland, Fiction, Classics, Irish Literature

40 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).

Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slow paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life.
--from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Argos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aslında şair olan W.B.Yeats’ın nadir düz yazılarının üçünün bir arada basıldığı bir kitap. İlk bölüm kitaba adını veren Kızıl Hanrahan adlı bir köy öğretmeninin, aşkı için öğretmenliği bırakıp başka bir kişiliğe döndüğü, birbiriyle bağlantılı hikayelerinden oluşan kısa bir roman. İkinci bölüm yine kısa hikayelerle Gizli Gül öyküleri, son bölüm ise “Hermetizm”e merak salan Yeats’ın simyacılar hakkında yazdığı (gül bir simya sembolüdür) kısa bir metin.

Şair olduğundan hikayeler de şiirsel, kısa kısa mısralar gibi yazılmış. Kitabı tam anlayabilmek için İrlanda mitolojisi, İrlanda ve İskoç efsaneleri, gelenekleri ve folklörü hakkında bilgi sahibi olmak hatta İrlanda’nın Keltler’den bu yana tarihini de bilmek gerekir. Düzelti neredeyse yapılmamış, çok sayıda kelime yazım hatası var. Herşeye rağmen güzel okunan kısacık hikayeler, değişik bir okuma arayanlara.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeats returns to his love of fantasy and folklore with this collection of six short stories chronicling the life of a folk hero of Yeats’ own creation, Red Hanrahan (although he was loosely based on a real person; the bard Owen Roe O’Sullivan).

Hanrahan has a few run-ins with the supernatural and the ladies, usually coming off worse for wear. These tales are entertaining and written with the poetic flair you’d expect from Yeats. I enjoyed them.

Unrelated trivia: the first restaurant my wife and I ever ate in together was called Hanrahan’s. It’s not there anymore.

My next book: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats

[Sinem A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

yoğun fantastikli güzel yorum :)

[Ümit Mutlu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Üç bölümdeki öykülerden oluşuyor kitap ve en çok Hanrahan'ın öykülerini sevdim, geri kalanlar benim için fazla fantastik. Lâkin üslubun lezzetini varsaymamak imkansız. Okurken insan şuralarda geziyor sanki. Of.

"Onca zaman nerede olduğunu söylemesi zor," dedi en yaşlıları. "Ya da dünyanın nerelerinde gezdiğini. Ama belli ki ayağında birçok yolun tozunu taşıyorsun. Bir kez bunun büyüsüne kapıldıktan sonra dolaşmaya başlayıp her şeyi unutan onca insan var."

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finishing up my Yeats after The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose, this is similar to the latter, in that it incorporates folklore and legend of the former while being told as written pieces and not tale fragments. Here, though, we follow one character: Schoolmaster, poet and singer Owen "Red" Hanrahan. In the first piece ("Red Hanrahan") he receives a message that he must rush to the side of his lady love, but gets distracted by a game of cards and end up lost and pixy-led, only to be found addled, years later. What's interesting is that what might often had been the final word on his character in other stories is actually only the beginning, as we pick up on his subsequent wanderings (from THE SECRET ROSE, I'll assume he takes up as a "gleeman", a itinerant poet/bard) on the road, and the times when he finds transient lodgings, only to run afoul of the Sidhe (faeries) or his reputation, and be driven back on the road.

"The Twisting of The Rope" makes this apparent as, invited into a party, the hostess begins to find Hanrahan's seductive/poetic attractions towards a maiden, Oona, worrisome and must find a way to trick him from the house (because he was invited in, and rules of the faeries apply to him as well, it seems). This ends well, with Hanrahan disconsolate on a lonely seashore reflecting on how he can never find love after being charmed by the Sidhe (who he wants nothing to do with). He finds solace with some fallen women and lodges with them (in "Hanrahan and Cathleen the Daughter of Hoolihan") gathering about him men who come to hear his songs, including a very sad one about all the troubles suffered by Ireland. In "Red Hanrahan's Curse" he is asked to put a mocking "song" on an old man by a young woman who is being forced to marry him, but this makes him reflect on his own age and so he crafts a song that mocks and warns of old age itself, teaching the local children to spread it far and wide - which leads to a mob of old men burning his cottage, from which he flees.

"Hanrahan's Vision" has him, during a long trip on the road and now at a mountaintop, run into an eerie spectral procession of strange looking men and women. He presumes them to be sidhe but is informed by a beggar that travels with them that they are the spirits of different types of lovers from legend. The truth of this, and that the beggar is the man who betrayed Ireland by letting the Normans in and is now cursed to proceed with them, causes Hanrahan to scream whereupon the whole group vanishes. Finally, in "The Death of Hanrahan", he is taken in by an old hag and nursed through his death throes and is visited by various Sidhe who intimate that, possibly, his song/poetry will continue on...

This is interesting, to read a set of stories about a character in the latter half of his life, told in a rich, evocative and sentimental Irish voice. There's a lot of melancholia here, but also that feeling for the traditions of Ireland Yeats was attempting to capture. Good stuff.

[Colin Cloutus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeats creates an Irish myth that doesn't depend too much on past narrative myths or reconstruction to access those perennial sensibilities.
Not much can be said by me, but the prose here is astonishingly poetic to the point of reading like prose-poetry. The conclusive dedication to A. E. is delightful.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

The atmosphere of these 6 short stories is so magical. I felt like I was reading a fairytale about death.

[Vari Lemur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Welch sonderbare Geschichte über das leid Irlands. Fragen über Fragen…

[Recensioni in tre parole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lirico. Musicale. Modernista.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stays with you

[Wozzeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Özellikle Hanrahan öyküleri ve Simya Gülü çok güzel. Yeats tam bir modern klasik. Okunmalı.