Four pieces from W. B. Yeats's Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), read in the order Yeats printed them, from the section "Witches, Fairy Doctors". First, "Bewitched Butter (Donegal)" by Letitia Maclintock: the Hanlons' Kerry cow gives no more milk after Grace Dogherty has milked her, and nine new pins boiled in a pint of the milk bring the truth knocking at the door. Then "The Horned Women" by Lady Wilde: twelve witches, horned from one to twelve, come carding and spinning by night, until the Spirit of the Well teaches the mistress of the house how to break their spells and bar the door against them. Next, "The Witches' Excursion" by Patrick Kennedy: Shemus Rua snatches his housekeeper's red cap, cries the flying charm, and soars to a castle cellar in England — and very nearly pays for the journey on the gallows. Last, "The Confessions of Tom Bourke" (Part One) by T. Crofton Croker: Tom Bourke of Kilworth, farmer and fairy doctor, begins his confessions with the cure of his little son, given over by the physicians — the night in the cow-house, his father's ghost at the bedside, and the goat that dropped dead at sunrise.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
A note on what is not read here. Between the first and second of these pieces Yeats prints three more witch tales — "A Queen's County Witch", "The Witch Hare", and "Bewitched Butter (Queen's County)". They are not read in this programme: each turns on a violent death told in scene — a witch whipped into the open and dying in torment while her cabin is burned, a hare shot and tracked by its blood, and an old woman set upon by dogs and found dying in her own blood. No completeness is claimed for that stretch of the section. "The Confessions of Tom Bourke" is a long piece and is read in two parts; it continues in Part Thirteen.
Chapters:
00:35 Introduction
01:38 Bewitched Butter (Donegal)
04:24 The Horned Women
10:03 The Witches' Excursion
15:42 The Confessions of Tom Bourke — Part One
From Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, edited by W. B. Yeats (1888), public domain; told in a fresh in-house rendering.
Music: "Spotlight After Midnight — Slow Pulse" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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