Tea at Trianon: Irish Myth of the Children of Lir

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Irish Myth of the Children of Lir

A fairy-tale that is the basis of the ballet Swan Lake. From Irish Central:

Many years ago in ancient Ireland, lived a King and ruler of the sea called Lir. He had a beautiful wife, called Eva, who gave him four children – eldest son Aodh, a daughter called Fionnula, and twin boys, Fiachra and Conn.When the children were young, their mother Eva died. Lir and children were very sad, and King wanted a new mother for his young sons and daughter, so he married Eva’s sister Aoife who, it was said, possessed magical powers.
Aoife loved the children and Lir at first, but soon she became very jealous of the time that King spent with Aodh, Fionnula, Fiachra, and Conn. She wanted to have all of his attention for herself. One day, she took the children to swim in a lake while the sun was hot in the sky. When they got there and children took to the water, Aoife used her powers to cast a spell over children, which would turn them all into beautiful swans.

She knew that if she killed children, their ghosts would haunt her forever, so instead, she cast this spell, forcing them to live as swans for 900 years - three hundred on Lake Derravaragh, three hundred on Straits of Moyle, and three hundred more on Isle of Inish Glora. The spell would only be broken when children heard the ringing of a bell, and the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland. (Read more.)