The Waters and the Wild

The Waters and the Wild

Bats seem to live between worlds - earth and sky, night and day, natural and supernatural. This has put them at the forefront of folklore, myth, and magic all around the world.

The inspiration for The Waters and the Wild was an article in the New York Times reporting that Thoor Ballylee, the tower once owned by the poet William Butler Yeats, is home to roost of Lesser Horseshoe bats. These bats are found only in several counties in Ireland, likely due to the warming effect of the Gulf Stream which shelters the island from extremes in temperature. Lesser Horseshoe bats are threatened with extinction, so the population at Thoor Ballylee is valued and protected. The Vincent Wildlife Trust safeguards Lesser Horseshoe Bats in Ireland.

Lesser Horseshoe Bat

Thoor Ballylee - Home of Yeats by Joseph Mischyshyn

Yeats is known for his poems about Irish folklore and mythology. His poem The Stolen Child is a song, or chant, in which faeries call to a human child to come join them in the wild. Like the faeries Yeats describes, bats are most often spotted when they emerge at dusk, flying out to steal choice fruit from orchards. The Waters and the Wild uses Yeat's famous poem The Stolen Child to compare bats to the faeries. When you answer the call of the faeries you are bound to them forever.

The Waters and the Wild is one of three based on the harmony and melody in Eddie Vedder's song Rise. It contains some of Vedder's lyrics, along with excerpts from Yeat's poem The Stolen Child.

Listen to Rise

Glen Car by Andrew Gilmore

Excerpts from The Stolen Child
W. B. Yeats - 1865-1939

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Lyrics to Rise
by Eddie Vedder

Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faith
And how will it grow

Gonna rise up
Burning black holes in dark memories
Gonna rise up
Turning mistakes into gold

Such is the passage of time
Too fast to fold
And suddenly swallowed by signs
Low and behold

Gonna rise up
Find my direction magnetically
Gonna rise up
Throw down my ace in the hole

Image source - Glencar by Andrew Gilmore CC 2
Image source-  Joseph Mischyshyn  CC 3