Tuesday 15 February 2011

Hallaig

 'Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig'



 

When I saw the Gaelic words in the Old Ballarat Cemetery last Sunday I remembered a poem called Hallaig by Sorley Maclean, a modern poet who writes in Gaelic as well as English.You can find Hallaig in both Gaelic and English here on the poet's website.

There are still deer around and about Ballarat - these ones were at Mt Egerton - but I don't think any families here still speak Gaelic.



6 comments:

Wren said...

Love that second deer photo! it looks quite spooky.... as though the tree is falling over.
And what were you doing at Mt Egerton...apart from taking photos? Bushwalking...?

Wren said...

Love that second photo! Looks quite spooky... as though that tree is falling over! And I like how the deer is turning away.. the bleached grasses and dark forest

Anonymous said...

Not wild deers though?

Elizabeth said...

Not bushwalking, no, I was visiting the farm. The deer are farmed deer - although there are wild deer out and about in odd places.

Seamus Heaney's poem 'Would they had stay'd' - a lament/praise for Gaelic poetry by an Irish poet - is haunted by deer - just as deer haunt the poems of the gaelic poets he names.

grace Forrest~Maestas said...

elizabeth...i've been gone.
difficult winter, BIG cloth class,
just my mind....but at first
quiet moment, i catch up on you
in your world and am happy.

Elizabeth said...

hello grace! I've not commented but I've been watching your latest crow cloth with great pleasure.