[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
. Like Lang, continues Foster (1997: 525), Yeats argued that psychical researchers and anthropologists were confrontingthe same reality.And he felt it equally important to assert the seriousnessof spiritualist inquiry; for all the seedy deceptions practised in Hollowayand Soho, there remained as in folktales the gravity and simplicity of the idea that the dead are all around us, and that there are spirits whocan guide us.During the autumn of 1910 and the winter of 1910-11, Evans-Wentz worked towardsediting his material from its original three volumes down to a more publishablesingle volume of around 550 pages, continuing to revise the material into thefollowing spring15.There was a brief flurry of correspondence between Jenner andEvans-Wentz in August 1911.A postcard from the American Club [a private club forAmerican expatriates] in Oxford, dated 10 August, told Jenner that Evans-Wentz hadasked his publishers to send the proofs of chapter two, part six The Taking ofEvidence: In Cornwall to Bospowes for Jenner s final approval16.Similarly, ninedays later, an American Club postcard told Jenner that Evans-Wentz had asked hispublishers to send the proofs of the much shorter section on Cornwall from chapterone, Environment, and requested Jenner s criticism17.Apparently, Jenner dulyprovided his criticism, for a third postcard, dated 29 August, thanked Jenner for hiscorrections to the proofs, and informed him that The Fairy-Faith is now all set up.Hope to have it appear in October 18.As it transpired, it was 20 November 1911before Evans-Wentz was in a position to send Jenner a copy of the first edition of hisbook19, requesting Jenner s criticism with a view to a second, revised edition that15Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished letter to H.Jenner, 14 March, in Jenner Collection(Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 1; Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished letter to H.Jenner, 16 March, in Jenner Collection (Courtney Library, RoyalInstitution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 1; Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished postcardto H.Jenner, 30 March, in Jenner Collection (Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9:packet 8: bundle 116Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished postcard to H.Jenner, 10 August, in Jenner Collection(Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 117Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished postcard to H.Jenner, 19 August, in Jenner Collection(Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 118Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished postcard to H.Jenner, 29 August, in Jenner Collection(Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 119Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished postcard to H.Jenner, 20 October, in Jenner Collection(Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 1; Evans-Wentz, W.Y.147 was never forthcoming, despite that Evans-Wentz did not die until 17 July 1965(Winkler 1982).The book itself is divided into four sections: The Living Fairy-Faith , TheRecorded Fairy-Faith , The Cult of Gods, Spirits, Fairies, and the Dead , and Modern Science and the Fairy-Faith; and Conclusions.By far the most substantialof the four sections is the former, of which the first chapter discusses theenvironmental influence upon the fairy faith in the six Celtic nations in turn.OnCornwall, Evans-Wentz (2002: 12) wrote that There are there ruined British villages whose builders are long forgotten,strange prehistoric circular sun-temples like fortresses crowning the hill-tops, mysterious underground passage-ways, and crosses probably pre-Christian.Everywhere are the records of the mighty past of this thrice-holy Druid land of sunset.There are weird legends of the lost kingdom ofFair Lyonesse, which seers sometimes see beneath the clear salt waves,with all its ancient towns and flowers fields; legends of Phoenicians andOriental merchants who came for tin; legends of gods and giants, ofpixies and of fairies, of King Arthur in his castle at Tintagel, of angelsand of saints, of witches and of wizards.Here, Evans-Wentz attempted to claim both the mystical and the prosaic in supportof his study, similar to the way in which Duncombe-Jewell attempted to claim boththe Celtic and the non-Celtic in support of his argument for Cornwall s membershipof the Celtic Congress.For Evans-Wentz, Celtic villages and prehistoric tin-traderswere as strange, mysterious and weird as stone circles, the Arthurian legendsand, of course, piskies and fairies.Before St Augustine came to Britain, Evans-Wentz (2002: 12) continued, the Celtsof Cornwall had already combined in their own mystical way the spiritual messageof primitive Christianity with the pure nature-worship of their ancestors. However,for Evans-Wentz (2002: 13), in later times new theological doctrines weresuperimposed on this mysticism of Celtic Christianity, the Sacred Fires were buried(1911) unpublished telegram to H.Jenner, 6 November, in Jenner Collection (Courtney Library,Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 1; Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished148 in ashes, and the Light and Beauty of the pagan world obscured in sackcloth. ButEvans-Wentz did not reserve his criticism for Roman Catholicism alone.He alsowent on to criticise increasingly universal and compulsory school-based education,the Education Act of 1870 [under Gladstone s first Liberal government] havingprovided for a national system of primary schools, and civilisation more generally: The Cornishman s vision is no longer clear.He looks upon cromlech anddolmen, upon ancient caves of initiation, and upon the graves of hisprehistoric ancestors, and vaguely feels, but does not know, why his landis so holy, is so permeated by an indefinable magic; for he has lost hisancestral mystic touch with the unseen he is educated and civilized (Evans-Wentz 2002: 13)
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]