OWLS IN A VILLAGE 171 



had a meaning and a message to us; that, like 

 the fairy -folk in Mr. Yeats's Celtic lyric, the 

 singers were singing — 



We who are old, old and gay, 



O, so old ; 

 Thousands of years, thousands of years. 



If all were told ! 



The fairies certainly have a more understand- 

 able way of putting it than the geologists and 

 the anthropologists when we ask them to tell 

 us how long it is since Palaeolithic man listened 

 to the hooting of the wood owl. Has this sound 

 the same meaning for us that it had for him — 

 the human being that did not walk erect, and 

 smile, and look on heaven, but went with a stoop, 

 looking on the earth ? No, and Yes. Standing 

 alone under the great trees in the dark still 

 nights, the sound seems to increase the feeling 

 of lonehness, to make the gloom deeper, the 

 silence more profound. Turning our vision 

 inward on such occasions, we are startled with a 

 glimpse of the night-side of nature in the soul : 

 we have with us strange unexpected guests, 

 fantastic beings that are in no way related to 



