NewMyths.com Issue #64 - An Artist's Journey Into Faerie

editor's note: World-reknowned painter, sculptor, carver, photographer, Paul Nixon has created several of NewMyths' favorite cover artworks, including the cover for our current issue. His gallery "Celtic Twilight" reads like a primer of the fairy realm of ancient Ireland. Here he discusses how his art has been inspired by the tales of his homeland and by the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

An Artist's Journey Into Faerie

Nonfiction – by Paul Nixon

When I was growing up seven miles from Dublin in the village of Clondalkin, the highlight of the year was visiting my grandparents. They lived at the foot of Tievebaun (White Mountain) in the Dartry Mountains, in a 300-year-old thatched cottage without electricity or running water. My father said when my mother first took him home to meet her parents, he felt he had stepped back in time two hundred years.

After a four-hour drive, the mountain would finally come into view and we would leave the twentieth century behind. The road narrowed, turning from tarmac into gravel and loose stone with tall grass in the center that swished against the undercarriage. Briars on both sides barely allowed the car to pass. My father muttered words not for the ears of children as thorns scored the sides of the car. As we approached the clearing where the cottage nestled against the mountain, my grandparents and my Uncle James would be outside, having heard the car's engine droning along the lane. When we turned off the engine, the silence was so complete I could feel it in my soul. Everything had a sense of great age. We seemed to have crossed an unseen barrier into a magical realm.

My photograph of Granny’s house below Tievebaun:

Once upon a time, travelers were cautioned against coming to this region with rumors of subhuman beings and other nasty prowlers. My grandmother would take me on long walks though this mystical countryside all the time. Listening to her tales, I imagined unseen creatures watching from behind an ancient stone wall or a dense thicket. Serendipity and enchantment were always close.

The area around the Dartry range, which is in the northwest counties of Leitrim and Sligo, is often called Yeats Country because of its connection to one of my greatest influences, the poet, dramatist, writer, and politician William Butler Yeats. He is one of the foremost figures in twentieth century literature and a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival.

Yeats' mother brought the family to live in Sligo in 1872, exposing her children to the rich folklore of household staff, workmen, and boatmen. “It seemed that everyone in Sligo talked of fairies,” the poet later recalled. Throughout his five decades of writing he always acknowledged the inspiration he drew from this beloved landscape. It was also there that my interest in fairies and the supernatural blossomed. Interestingly, both Yeats and I lived in Dublin, are Geminis, and were inspired by another famous Dartry mountain, Benbulben.

In 1890, in London Magazine, in an essay titled “The Irish Fairies,” Yeats wrote, "On the side of Benbulben is a white square in the limestone. It is said to be the door to fairyland. There is no more inaccessible place in existence than this white square door; no human foot has ever gone near it, and not even the mountain goats can browse the saxifrage beside its mysterious whiteness. Tradition says that it swings open at nightfall, and lets pour through an unearthly troop of hurrying spirits. For those gifted to hear their voices, the air will be full at such a moment with a sound like whistling. Many have been carried away out of the neighbouring villages by this troop of riders."

Here is my photo of the Fairy Door.

Unlike many Irish writers and men and women of learning before him, Yeats took Irish folklore with the utmost seriousness, considering many of its facets as absolute truth. The mystical Otherworld was as real to him as the one we live and breathe in each day.

Two of my own works of art are now on permanent display in the Sligo County Museum alongside Yeats’ collected works. In May 2017, the Yeats Society of New York featured my presentation “Growing Up in the Shadow of Yeats,” including some of my sculptures and photographs illustrating how Benbulben inspired us both.

Here are some of my interpretations of fairies still believed to roam my homeland.

The Watchful Eye

Hand-Carved Cedar Wood

The Lesidhe, guardians of the forest, are normally disguised as foliage. They can transform themselves into an animal or plant of any shape and size and can also imitate sounds in the forest. Walkers in the deep woods are often led astray by these spirits, who hope they’ll become confused and lost.

Dark Woman of the Forest

Hand-Carved Cedar Wood

Yeats describes an encounter with the Leanhaun Sidhe, the dark woman of the forest: “I was dancing with an immortal august woman, who had black lilies in her hair, and her dreamy gesture seemed laden with wisdom more profound than the darkness that is between star and star, and with a love like the love that breathed upon the waters; and as we danced on and on, the incense drifted over us and round us, covering us away as in the heart of the world, and ages seemed to pass, and tempests to awake and perish in the folds of our robes and in her heavy hair.

“Suddenly I remembered that her eyelids had never quivered and that her lilies had not dropped a black petal, or shaken from their places, and understood with a great horror that I danced with one who was more or less than human, and who was drinking up my soul as an ox drinks up a wayside pool, and I fell, and darkness passed over me.”

The Red Man

Sculpted Cement

The Red Man is a fairy trickster who induces nightmares.

The Pooka

Hand-Carved Cedar Wood

Another Celtic fairy that induces nightmares is the Pooka. As Yeats describes it: "Its delight is to transform itself into a sleek black horse with sulfurous blazoned eyes, seeking out a rider whom he rushes through ditches, across rivers, and over mountains, only to shake him off in the dull of the morning. Especially does it love to plague a drunkard? A drunkard's sleep is his kingdom."

Lunantisidhe

Hand-Carved Cedar Wood

The Lunantisidhe are the protectors of the blackthorn tree. Although thin and wrinkled, they are very agile for their aged appearance. They have long, pointed, sharp teeth, pointed ears, and long arms and fingers that enable them to move about the twisted thorn branches they call home. May is their year's height as the blackthorn comes into bloom, timed with the first full moon, called the flower moon. The Lunantisidhe live in groups that are said to hate humans with a fiery passion.

“Lunantisidhe” is an odd blending of the Latin word luna (moon) and the Gaelic sidhe (fairy). Their sole purpose is to protect the blackthorn tree from encroachment. The only time they leave the trees is to pay homage to the moon goddess at the Esbats celebrating the 13 full moons that occur each year. They represent the goddess at the height of her power.

You can explore more of my fairy images in the “Celtic Twilight” section of my website. https://www.paulnixonart.com/celtic-twilight-photography

Wood carving allowed me to see things in a more distinct way, and I found myself learning to cast and to make molds. Stained glass became an added skill, as well as painting and photography. It became an amazing transition for me. Middle-aged dreams are real. At the age of 45, I discovered this passion. My message to rising artists is to never give up on your dream.

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