The because of the influence of the Queen of 

 Rainy Faerie (she has many names), and the second 

 ya es * because of Midir, who sleeps in November, 

 or, as another legend has it, 'goes away' in 

 that month. In that month too the Daughter 

 of Midir has departed on her long quest of her 

 brother Aluinn Og (is this a legend or a con- 

 fused traditionary remembrance, or a mytho- 

 poeic invention ... I have come upon it 

 once only), to find him asleep under the 

 shaken fans of the Northern Lights, and to 

 woo him with pale arctic fires, and auroras, 

 and a faint music wrought out of the murmur 

 of polar airs on a harp made of a seal's breast- 

 bone. It is but in another guise the old 

 Greek legend of Persephone in the Kingdom 

 of Aidoneus. Again, it is in November that 

 the touch of Dalua, the Secret Fool or the 

 Accursed of the Everlasting Ones, gives death. 

 Once more, it is in November that Lir holds 

 his great banquet, a banquet that lasts three 

 months, in Tir-fo-tuinn, the Country under 

 the waves. In one way or another all these 

 dreams are associated with the sea, with water 

 and the Winter Solstice. By different ways 

 of thought, of tradition, and of dreaming 

 phantasy, the minds of this race or that 

 people, of these scattered tribes or those 

 broken clans, have reached the same strange 



282 



