Letters

WB Yeats’s hypnotic charms

Trancelike state

Thu Sept 21 2023 - 00:03

Sir, – If indeed the Nobel poet WB Yeats hypnotised hens (Alison Healy, An Irishwoman’s Diary, September 18th), he wasn’t bandying it about in his many poems. He does refer to giving trout “unquiet dreams” by “whispering in their ears” in the much-loved poem The Stolen Child. He conjures the image of “a parrot swaying in a tree” as it stares at his own reflection in The Indian to his Love. And he kept ducks when he lived at Thoor Ballylee in Galway. But, perhaps, he stayed silent because it was those early Sligo hens which inspired him to recreate the trancelike state he used when engaging in “automatic writing” and séances. Who knew the humble hen might wield such influence! – Yours, etc,

SUSAN O’KEEFFE,

Director,

Yeats Society Sligo,

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Sligo.