The Celtic Twilight

The Celtic Twilight gathers W. B. Yeats’s prose sketches of Irish folklore, presenting reported encounters with village ghosts, fairies, spirits and other beings from traditional belief. Its subjects range from enchanted woods and miraculous creatures to the three O’Byrnes and the evil faeries, with individual accounts often balanced against questions of belief and unbelief.

Yeats also considers the relationship between heaven, earth and purgatory, alongside stories involving sailors, theologians, sorcerers and visionary experiences. Drumcliff and Rosses appear among the named places, while chapters such as “The Golden Age”, “The Friends of the People of Faery” and “Dreams That Have No Moral” broaden the collection beyond isolated ghost stories. The closing pieces, “By the Roadside” and “Into the Twilight”, return to its reflective, folkloric atmosphere.