Last summer I was on holiday in Dingle and took the tour of Blasket island. The boat dropped us on the island for a few hours and we were able to take a dip in the ocean at the same beach the seals hang out in (we stayed on the opposite side so as not to disturb them). The swim was much needed because, right before it, we had taken a tour of the abandoned village under a scorching hot sun. On the tour, the guide explained to us that, despite the minuscule population, Blasket island has had an outsized cultural production. The island has produced a number of writers, but the written word was not its only cultural export. Storytelling was extremely important to the people of the island, which were quite isolated from the mainland most of the year (only a few miles away, but the sea can be rough). The most famous and one of the last generation of storytellers of Blasket Island is Peig Sayers, a woman of incredible memory and talent whose tales (in gaelic) have been transcribed by scholars (as she herself was illiterate) and have filled a number of books. This book is one of those, although I suspect it is the most introspective of the bunch.
The tales are mundane - you can just imagine similar things happening in every other small irish village. Nevertheless they are spun vividly and you find yourself captivated, even if it's just the story of neighbours quarrelling about whose hen is whose. As per the title, Peig was an old woman when these tales were transcribed, and as such they are all tinged with melancholy by a nostalgic light. Peig reflects briefly but often about her lost youth, and those comments make for some of the most heartfelt moments in the book; in this sense they reminded me a little of "Memoirs of Hadrian", which to me is pretty much a book about growing old. Here is a quote from Peig:
O Eagle Mountain, isn't it the stately, noble shape you have today on you! [...] In the days of my childhood there was no other place under the bright sun was brighter than you. You were but a stone's throw from me then but the big watery sea is between you and me today. Wasn't it often Kate Jim and myself up on your top hauling the turf! We were like two hares that time. Your height would not trouble us. Oh! A delight to my heart was the smell of your heather! Often I'd pick a bunch of it and tie it into a fold of my dress. I'd never tire of sniffing the scented smell up in my nose. But now I've only the smell of the sea since I left you. It gives me peace of mind to be looking at your brow without mist. O king of a thousand powers, 'tis many a thought you arouse in my heart. Am I not again a little girl, whilst I'm looking over at you, going from bush to bush looking for nests down along the riverside to the rapid of Coman's Head! Kate Jim is with me again and we small, throwing stones into the river and the current shooting them before it like the bullet.
Peig is very adept at painting a lively picture in your head with her words (see passage above), and reading the book you learn many things about island life almost as if you witnessed them with your own eyes. For example, if you wanted to go anywhere on the mainland you had to gather a few rowers on the boat first, as a small boat would not make it; and every trip carried some risk. Some of the tales indeed talk about drownings or near-drownings, which were not so rare. Mainlanders were absolutely not immune to the risk of drowning, as many were fishermen or otherwise needed to get to the islands to gather 'turf' (peat) or seaweed. You can tell how rough life was from the fact that people risked their life getting in boats just so they didn't have to freeze to death in the winter. The elements were always conspiring against humans: shoals of mackerels would tease the fishermen and leave them wholly empty-handed, storms would cut off the island completely, bad summers would have you starving. In general the economic prospects were grim and even people with jobs were not necessarily home-owners, but rather traveling workers who would get room and board for their services (e.g. a traveling tailor). It was also generally bad form to refuse to feed wanderers who turned up to your door, likely because that could easily be you one day. There were well-off people of course, and many worked in their employment. In the book a recurring character is Betty Rice, a rich widow (?) who owned land and houses on the Dingle peninsula - and employed Peig's father at some point, among others. The power rich people had over poorer ones is exemplified by an episode in which Betty deems it sensible to have a young woman kidnapped by her goons so that her servant can marry her (luckily the woman is able to wiggle herself out of the situation with the help of her father). In this regard, another thing you learn is that marriages were treated as a lesser deal than today: there are a few instances in the book in which a person goes quietly away for a day or two and comes back married; this did not seem to cause great stir. The marriages were not all arranged - Peig tells some love stories that end in marriage, which was nice to hear. Peig herself was in an arranged marriage instead, although a happy one.
When I bought the book I was hoping for more stories of folklore and the supernatural, but all the tales in this book are of real events. There is one exception: in the chapter in which she tells of her pilgrimage to Wether's Well (one of the many healing wells of Ireland), Peig recounts the story of the purported supernatural origin of the well's healing properties. It's a classic 'propaganda' story from when Christianity was colonising all pagan folklore. A pagan farmer had fenced up his field to protect it from grazing animals, but it was getting grazed at night nevertheless. After his young helper fails to find out who is ruining the field, the farmer decides to supervise the field himself at night. What he witnesses are three (supernatural) wethers who are munching on everything, so he starts to chase them but they can't be caught. The wethers reach the center of the field and vanish by jumping into the earth. In their place is left a spring surrounded by three large stones, which is why it's named Wether's Well. The christian element is in the fact that the pagan gets a priest to explain the phenomenon to him and he converts / has the place blessed - the usual.
Most irish people hate Peig, and understandably so as she is imposed on them as part of the gaelic curriculum in school; but I enjoyed this book and will probably pick up another collection of her stories at some point.