It all starts with an old woman cutting a chicken's throat on St Martin's Eve, Bleeding for St Martin. Fromthere we take an extended journey through memory and history, myth and superstition, the mix of pagan and Christian that informs the impoverished hardscrabble rural life that was going into decline as the author grew to manhood. There so much here, from the arts and crafts of rural life centring around the major points of the agricultural year, to stories of saints and kings and fairies and rogues, to nostalgic memories of Christmas and Halloween and packages from America, to building roads or hay ricks or drying oats, to Mummers and Wren Boys, poitin makers and about a hundred ghosts. A poetic meditation on the wealth of life-lore in a small poor community tinged with regret for everything lost. This is a rich treasure trove of a book and I do not want to send it back to the library I want to keep it as a reference on my desk. Invaluable.