Tags
Baltimore, Brown University, Celtic Tiger, Eugenio Montale, Gabinetto Vieusseux, Italo Calvino, University of Turin, Vladimir Propp
This unexpectedly sunny Sunday brought us on a walk through Baltimore where we saw this wonderous tree full of tiny treehouses and interconnecting ladders:
They are very similar houses to the ones you find hidden in various crevices along the Fairy Woods in Rineen, near Union Hall.
These fairy houses started off being secretive wee abodes tucked away at the roots of trees along the walk. People would leave coins and small fancies at the doors of these houses in order to gain good favour with the little folk. But as time went by the fairy houses in the wood got bigger in a reflection of the Celtic Tiger houses being built in the neighbouring countryside. Passersby began to leave more and more bits of magical plastic they may have in their pockets, hoping that a My Little Pony leg might grant fairy wishes. There was even a planning notice put up at one point. This tree in Baltimore seems to suggest the little folk, fed up with having to tidy away piles of bottle tops and pen lids from the front of their houses, have taken to high rise living.
It is surprisingly hard to find a poem about treehouses. Do let me know if you can think of any. But I did find this nicely bleak poem that has “trees” and “houses” next to each other in the same line….It’s by Eugenio Montale, a great Italian poet who was dismissed from his directorship of the Gabinetto Vieusseux research library in 1938 for refusing to join the Fascist party. He was extensively read by Italo Calvino when he was at the University of Turin studying agriculture – obviously Montale was not actually on the curriculum. Of course as you well know (!) Calvino also studied Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale and Historical Roots of Russian Fairy Tales. So you see there is a connection between Montale and fairies! Sadly the Proppian Fairytale Generator that was hosted by Brown University is no longer running but you can fracture a fairy tale at Readwritethink.org. Just don’t mess with their wee houses.
Maybe One Morning
Maybe one morning, walking in dry, glassy air,
I’ll turn, and see the miracle occur:
nothing at my back, the void
behind me, with a drunkard’s terror.
then, as if on a screen, trees houses hills
will suddenly collect for the usual illusion.
But it will be too late; and I’ll walk on silent
among the men who don’t look back, with my secret.