Irish Stories Quotes

“You can't reveal to me that you're Folk---it must have been part of the enchantment that exiled you from your world. Isn't that it? I've heard of that---yes, that account of the Gallic changeling. And isn't it a peripheral motif within the Ulster Cycle?*

* There are, in fact, several stories from France and the British Isles which describe this sort of enchantment. In two of the Irish tales, which may have the same root story, a mortal maiden figures out that her suitor is an exile of the courtly fae after he inadvertently touches her crucifix and burns himself (the Folk in Irish stories are often burning themselves on crucifixes, for some reason). She announces it aloud, which breaks the enchantment and allows him henceforth to reveal his faerie nature to whomever he chooses.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“Some of these tales were about the ‘land beneath the waves’. This Irish fable tells of an enchanted world, under the water, and mortals may visit there at dusk, between the rising and the setting of the moon, when the water is still, and reflects like a mirror. They used to call it the ‘gates of glass’.”
― Arlene Stafford-Wilson, Lanark County Calling: All Roads Lead Home