Modern Irish - Bean a’ Leasa

The Woman from the Fairy Dwelling

Extract from Risteard B. Breatnach (ed. and trans.), Seana-chaint na nDéise II (Dublin 1961), p. 425 § 10 (Translation: p. 443).

Stories about immortal beings known as the Tuatha Dé ‘tribes of the gods’ or áes síde ‘people of the Otherworld mounds’, who dwell beneath hills, forts and lakes, figure largely in Medieval Irish tales. The landscape is dotted with large circular forts known in Irish as lios, a word frequently translated ‘fairy fort’. In the story Bean a’ Leasa ‘the woman of the fairy fort’, the border between our world and that of the fairy people is hardly discernible, and those who dwell above the earth heed the advice of supernatural visitors who dwell below, for fear of incurring their wrath. The story was collected in Ring, Co. Waterford at some point between the years 1908 and 1922, and it is read here in the dialect of Ring (An Rinn).  Features of the dialect can be heard, i.e. the lenited form thá ( ‘is’); the reduction of the preverb do to dh’ before vowels; the lenited final th > ch (rioth > ruch); the diphthong /əu/ in tabhair; and macha in the sense ‘yard’ (< mag ‘plain’). The story is read by Professor Aoibheann Nic Dhonnchadha in the dialect of Ring, Co. Waterford.

(Recorded at University of Cambridge Language Centre by Saimon Clark, Media Editor, March 2014)