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06 Aug 20 - 11:44 PM (#4067567) Subject: Lyr Req: The Enchanted Knife From: Daniel Kelly I'm reading 'The Secret Rose' (and other stories) by W.B.Yeats. In one of the stories he recounts a tale about a girl who was given a fairy knife to cut peat moss and her brothers eventually steal the knife from her and cut the hand off the fairy. Yeats suggests that this is a Scottish song, and I found a reference in an Anne Grant essay from 1903 where a fragment of the song is translated from Gaelic. The story also ends up in a Grimm Brothers volume. The line from the chorus is: "I behold yonder the tomhan covered with rowan and holly" Have any Scots/Gaelic speakers heard of this story or song? It would be great to track down the full song in Gaelic. I wrote my own ballad on the topic, there are links to the references I found in the video description. |