‘Life Giving Water From The Well Of The World’s End To The Ocean Of The Streams Of Story’
A Talk for the 10thAnnual Benedict Kiely Literary Weekend
Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Patrick Ryan, Ph.D., FEA
A stone thrown into a pond sets in motion concentric waves that spread out on the surface of the water, and their reverberation has an effect on the water lilies and reeds, the paper boat and the buoys of the fishermen at various distances. … In a short time countless events or micro-events occur one after another. Even if a person had the time and desire, I doubt whether all of this could be registered without missing some aspect of change.
It is not much different with a word, thrown by chance into the mind, producing waves on the surface and in the depths. It provokes an infinite series of chain reactions and, as it falls, it evokes sounds and images, analogues and recollections, meanings and dreams, in a movement that touches experience and memory, the imagination and the unconscious, and it is complicated by the fact that the mind does not react passively, but intervenes continually to accept and reject these representations, to connect and censor them, construct and destroy them.
(Gianni Rodari)
Gianni Rodari’s metaphor will, I hope, help trace the thought processes of a writer, processes mirroring the magical journeys taken by heroes and heroines in the wonder tales Benedict Kiely references. Although, as Rodari says, it’s impossible to register every ripple, the concept of a word dropped into the mind being like a stone dropped into a pond helps us map some of the more traceable thoughts of writers and readers when creating narratives. Reading and listening are active, and interactive, experiences where the reader or listener re-creates the story, even creating images different than those the narrator intended.
In ‘The Heroes of the Dark House’ Kiely references several storytellers and folktales; these stories have variants in other languages and cultures, and multiple versions in Irish folklore. Folklorists identify stories, compare and analyse them, and trace their development and migration by indexing the motifs common to several tales: details such as magic objects (like mirrors, rings, animals and swords), repetitive actions such as impossible tasks and journeys, and rhetorical devices providing common descriptions such as ‘hair black as ebony, lips red as blood, skin white as snow’ (Ashliman, Zimmerman, Leach). These instantly trigger mental activity, imagery for listeners or readers. These literary memes hint at thought processes taking place as the writer or teller spins his or her‘yarn’. With topoi such as these, the narrator stimulates thought processes engaging readers and listeners so that they understand the story, but are also immersed within it and emotionally moved by it (Lodge, Zipes 2006 and 2009, Ryan).
The wonder tales mentioned in Kiely’s story share similar structures and motifs, and these are clues to his thinking, and to his intentions for readers’ responses. One prominent motif is water or a magic well,common motifs in folklore and mythology. It’s also a metaphor some cultures use when describing what stories and storytelling are, and what happens when listeners or readers engage with the art form.
The water metaphor is a powerful one. Without water we do not live, and the human body is mostly water, as is our planet. Where there is human interaction, there are stories. No society in human history has existed without narrative, suggesting narrative is as life enhancing as water. Stories cross over continents and between languages, fitting different contexts and purposes while uniting individuals through social exchanges. Like water, words and narratives flow from one place to another by the path of least resistance. Just as water easily fills any container, stories fit any purpose: for pleasure, education, consolation or inspiration. Narratives fit into different genre, media, and aesthetic styles. Intuitively this knowledge of how narrative works informs our thoughts, speech and literary art, as well as social interaction (Lodge).
This was recognised long ago. Kathá Sarit Ságara (The Ocean of the Streams of Story) is one of the great narratives of India, a frame story that is the Indian equivalent of The Arabian Nights. It influenced other Indian classics, like the Panchatantra and the Mahabharata. Indian stories also influenced story traditions in classical, medieval and modern periods, across Persia, China, Arabia, the Middle East, North Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe (Leach, Philip). These ancient tales continue to inspire. A recent manifestation of Kathá Sarit Ságara is Salmon Rushdie’s children’s novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories(Rushdie).
This idea that we exist in an ocean of stories, and that there are streams of stories flowing into one another and into and out of each of us, links us to the metaphor of the well at the end of the world and the water of life it gives. Kiely links these when describing Owen Roe Wade, one of Broderick’s informants, who ‘Paralysed in his garret he travelled as he talked to find life-giving water in the well at the world’s end.’ This is the place our stone drops and makes some ripples we can map. That Owen Roe is paralysed but uses stories and storytelling to live, to travel in his imagination, expresses concepts around Kathá Sarit Ságara.
When exploring Kiely’s use of folk tales, I’m not claiming that he always consciously used folklore elements, or that he necessarily interpreted them exactly as I do now. Nor am I making a Freudian analysis, where the folk elements found in his work hint at dark psychological meanings. Writing, and our comprehension of writing processes, is more complex than this. The writing process is a mixture of the author’s knowledge and experiences, with influences from other literary sources and art forms. Through conscious and subconscious mental activities, words chosen express the writer’s thoughts but also prompt readers’ thinking. Narrative becomes more than the sum of its parts.
For example, scholars love to emphasize Synge’s reliance on his collected folklore and dialect, and the influence of his sense of the medieval grotesque on his work, but as one academic warned: ‘Any study of Synge’s work concerning questions of source and literary influence is dogged by three major difficulties. First, life, not literature, was his primary source; second, his originality obscures direct links with the traditions within which he was writing; and finally, his intimacy with so many folk tales confounds attempts to identify possible influences from their literary analogues’ (Johnson). This is equally true with Kiely who, I believe, chose folk tale titles and storytelling informants’ names because these prompted certain thoughts, images, and memories as he created his narrative. These were drawn from local knowledge and life experience, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously. And equally, both consciously and subconsciously, his eye and ear told him which word evoked certain thought processes in his and his readers’ minds. Stories, as well as who tells them and the context in which they’re told, provide insights into how the mind constructs meaning when interacting with narration.
Consider the real Owen Roe Ward—Eoghan Ruadh Mc an Bhaird, born in 1550 to a family of hereditary Donegal poets, died around 1630, chief poet to Red Hugh O’Donnell who, after the Flight of the Earls, served Rory and then Niall Garbh O’Donnell (Ulster Historical Circle). It’s no coincidence that Kiely named this informant after the famous bard. It might be. It might be Kiely liked the sound of the name, or chose it because it’s common to the story’s locale and he knew someone by that name. A writer familiar with local legend chose the name deliberately, particularly as his early works included a significant study of William Carleton who reported on and incorporated local lore in his own writing. Any reader knowing of the bard Owen Row will experience a frisson of recognition, connecting history and myth with the contemporary fiction and real life, making a more complex responseto this piece.
The reason for his paralysis tells us Kiely’s Owen Roe is not the O’Donnell’s bard, and simultaneously evokes more thoughts and stories. ‘Hewing trees for hire in a tangled plantation whose wood had once paid for the travels and other activities of D’Orsay and Lady Blessington, Owen brought down on his hapless spine a ton-weight of timber.’ The notorious Lady Blessington, an adventuress from Clonmel, married young to an army captain who soon died bankrupt, then four months after wed an Irish aristocrat seven years her senior, the first Earl of Blessington. They toured Europe living an expensive, wasteful lifestyle, befriending Lord Byron, and forming a ménage à trois with Count D’Orsay. After the Earl’s death D’Orsay and Lady Blessington continued their dissolute life (Cousin, Gardiner).
Again, those familiar with their notoriety will find that image juxtaposed with images of the overgrown timber plantation, ravaged inheritance, and a paralyzed Owen Roe in a garret. These references neatly indicate Brokerick’s age: Owen Roe, the informant, is connected with the notorious Regency couple, so the collector and informant possibly cover a span of 100 to 150 years between them. Even without detailed knowledge, this passage establishes in reader’s minds Broderick’s relationship to his folk studies and his community, providing insight to this main character.
So, what of Owen Roe’s story, the ‘King of Green Island’? There are many variations, one made famous by Jeremiah Curtin, an American anthropologist who learned Irish to gather folklore in the late 19th Century. For those knowing of Curtin, with their awareness of when Broderick most likely collected from Owen Roe, this title conjures up the Irish LiteraryRenaissance, as doesthe unnamed folktale with the magic well at the world’s end, an image central to this talk.
Multiple versions of ‘The Well at the World’s End’ exist in Ireland, notably one by Douglas Hyde and another by Seamus McManus, both closely associated with the Gaelic revival. Their versionsclosely resemble Grimms’ ‘The Water of Life’ and a Scottish tale from John Francis Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands. McManus, from Mount Charles, was another Ulsterman with Donegal stories from around the Blue Stacks and the Laggan. Folklorist, writer and poet, McManus popularized Irish legends in America as children’s literature. He began hanging around the fringes of the Celtic Twilight with James Stephens and Padraic Colum, who all followed Yeats, AE and that crowd, but like Colum, McManus made more of a name for himself inAmerica. The Green Island and The Well O’ the World’s End’ are ‘fair-to-middlin’’ distant cousins, both telling of long impossible journeys made by a king’s son, with magic objects and helpers, a princess bride, and insurmountable tasks completed by hero and heroine.
Curtins’ story tells of a son of a king in Erin who loses a bet playing hurly when tricked by a stranger, who sets him on a journey to find Green Island. Helped by three giants, he flies there on a golden eagle and wins the love of the youngest daughter of the King of Green Island. Her father sets him three impossible tasks to win three magic objects. The princess does the work and she and the king’s son elope. Pursued by her family, they throw the magic objects that change into obstacles, allowing their escape. Once home, the king’s son forgets about his princess when he’s kissed by his dog, and she must work as a servant until getting the chance to prove her identity, so that the king’s son remembers her and they are wed.
McManus’s ‘Well O’ The End of the World’ tells of Conor, son of a King in Ireland, whose wicked stepmother tricks him into fetching three bottles of the magic water of life from the well at the end of the world. Hindered by two cowardly stepbrothers who are turned to stone, and helped by three magical old men who provide a magic horse; he gets to the well, in a fortress impossible to breach, guarded by warriors with flaming swords and fierce animals, and ruled by a beautiful queen. But every 700 years all within the fortress sleep for one hour, and Conor has arrived at naptime. He’s warned to get the water and not dally, but he goes exploring, takes magic objects from the castle for his own future use, and then kisses the beautiful queen, leaving a broken ring as love token shared between them. He escapes just in time to avoid death and rewards the old men with the magic objects, and they restore his stepbrothers to life. The stepmother is so furious at his success she drops dead, but his father is happy.
Meanwhile, the queen awakes and tells her ladies she dreamt of an Irish prince kissing her, leaving a broken ring as love token. Seeing the broken ring, and that the water has been stolen, and she realises it was true and pursues Conor to keep her honour. The three old men help her and on arriving in Ireland, the stepbrothers claim to be her prince, but can’t produce the love token. When Conor does so, they are wed.
Two folk tales with similar elements:magic objects; impossible tasks and journeys; elders challenged and usurped by the young; and, finally, interesting,active roles for women. The writer’s intent is to provide chances for readers to engage intellectually and emotionally, thus sharing the writer’s thoughts when relating the narrative. Even if readers know nothing of the tales, local history, or local characters, their mention providesenough description and musical language to establish images of green mountains, rocky sea shores, landscapes shrouded in mist and quaint old villages peopled with eccentrics, all in contrast to the newness and strangeness of the occupying forces and the young upstart. Kiely’s intention is thatelements in the folktales underscore situations in the main narrative regarding Broderick and his manuscript, whose achievements are usurped by a younger upstart folklorist: this meeting of an old man and a young couldlead to benefits or prove an obstacle; the tales’ impossible accomplishments mirror deeds of real warriors in both ’98 and World War Two; and the transformations in the folktales foreshadow those in the short story, with characters seeming to be one thing then appear in a different guise.
Over afternoon tea, Broderick relates contemporary news—the sudden, recent redeployment of American forces garrisoned nearby, gone to fight on mainline Europe. Then Broderick segues into the origins of his drawing-room table, made of a blacksmith’s bellows destroyed by British yeomanry fighting the rebels of 1798. He doesn’t exchange wonder tales or experiences in his folklore collection, as might be expected. Kiely knew his stuff; this is an accurate depiction of typical encounters when doing fieldwork. I remember every time I visited the late John Campbell, renowned storyteller from South Armagh: each visit started with a walk across Slieve Gullion and much discussion and admiration of John’s herd of rare sheep, and only then did we settle in the front parlour to exchange old wonder tales, all narratives framed by news of names, places and experiences we had in common. Many whoromanticize storytelling activities forget that they are firmly embedded in everyday life, with exchanges of real local news and current events that link stories of the imagination to goings on in the world. Responses to such stories bring discussions backto the here and now of practical matters, like chores to do, or social courtesies such as cups of tea, or a pint or whiskey.
As in the fairy tales, Broderick doesn’t at first appear helpful to the young man. Yet discussing present and past armies introduces thoughts of real life warriors, linking them with mythological counterparts. Like their literaryrepresentations, the modern heroes travel across seas to dangerous kingdoms, facing impossible tasks and terrible monsters. Like the fictional heroes, their deeds transform them.
Kiely has chosen to reference folktales with women in active roles. His female informant, Maire John, the frisky old woman who enjoys hugging men as though she’s still twenty, has, like Owen Roe, an interesting connection and tells archetypal narratives[*]. By design or coincidence, Maire John’s name is reminiscent of John Le Maire, a French poet born in1473 whose most famous work is The Three Stories of Cupid and Fate. Maire John narrates the Hound of the White Mountain. This is a variant Cathleen and the Greyhound, a story made popular today by well-known teller Liz Weir, and all three of these, as Kiely points out, are versions of Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche.