Magical realm still connects to today

THE WORD for May, Bealtine, originally meant bright fire. “During the May festival, a great fire was lit to encourage the sun, and greenery was brought into the house symbolising the desire for future prosperity...”; so begins a press release for a new book, The Lore of the Land, an encyclopaedia of Myth, Legend and Romance, by Dáithí Ó hOgáin, associate professor of Folklore at UCD.

Published by Collins Press, the volume delivers what it says: a huge compilation of ancient Irish lore.

There is nothing one would want to know about the folk tales and beliefs of old Ireland, the customs, folk history, mythical and religious lore, vernacular traditions and romantic history that isn’t dealt with in this watershed work. It is timely, too, now that many of these quaint — but not always groundless — notions grow dim in the national memory. Some of the stories, I half-remember.