A testimony to otherworldly origin of tunes in our heritage

The Otherworld: Music and Song from Irish Tradition

Some would argue that belief in, say, the sí folk is a reformulation in memory, a distorted recollection of one of the earlier populations on our island, a re-telling as fairy story of what in a later age would have been written into the histories.

This kind of thinking is based on a particular idea of what constitutes evidence, but evidence, especially when it comes to the borderlands of our agreed world, is an elusive concept. “I’ve never seen a banshee”, for instance, is taken to mean the same thing as: “The banshee does not exist.” We think this assertion is somehow strengthened by adding: “… and I don’t know anyone who has.” This, of course, does not answer the two basic questions that come to mind: Why, given what we think we now know, do we persist in retaining these stories as living tradition? and: Why is it that all cultures, at all times, have and tell stories of another people whose world is contiguous to ours, a people we may meet from time to time?

This book collects, from the archives of the National Folklore Collection in UCD, a considerable testimony from musicians of the otherworldly origin of some of the best-known tunes and songs in our heritage; what’s fascinating is how coherent the accounts are, how matter of fact are the attributions to “the little people”, or to other sources not of ‘our’ world, of so many powerful and haunting pieces of music.

Musicians walking in lonely places at night hear music coming from a rath, are caught spying on the fiddlers and dancers, are taught a tune and wake up next morning with an irresistible tune in their heads, or able to play better than they ever had in the past; someone out walking at twilight sees a piper walk into the face of a hillside, follows him in, finds himself commanded to play for the sí at their dancing and is returned with a gift of music to his own world at dawn. How is it that these stories are known and believed the length and breadth of the country?

Why do so many gifted and capable musicians attribute such powerful music to sources not of our world? One might be tempted to note that a great number of stories feature musicians returning through lonely places at night from a céilí where drink was taken — and one might mention in this regard the hallucinatory qualities of poitín. Or one might say, in regard to the well-known Port na bPúcaí, that it bears an uncanny resemblance to what we now recognise as whale music — and observe that whales transiting the Blasket Sound, where the tune comes from, are not unknown. Yet, what do we gain from such knowingness?

Sherlock and uí Ógáin here offer us meticulously-annotated examples of stories gathered by folklorists from the telling of musicians, backed up by two glorious CDs of the music. This reviewer has no intention of persuading readers to either scepticism or belief; like the editors of this quite wonderful book, I invite you to read, listen and allow yourself the liberty of pondering the question: What if?

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