This has been lingering on my shelves for years, and it took an intercontinental plane flight to finally work through the fairly modest 158 pages of the book. It is a rather peculiar collection of short stories and extracts from longer works, including two ostensibly factual pieces by the editor on witchcraft accusations in Clonmel (1895) and Island Magee (1711). The only bit actually worth reading is a Sean O’Casey story, “The Raid”, which didn’t seem to me to have any supernatural element at all (unless you believe that randy Irish women are unnatural). The collection doesn’t really cohere and there is too much Oirishry.
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I do get the impression that A Girl of the Limberlost has the same fictional setting, and would be interested to know if there are any characters in common.
The ideology is rather fascinating. I did not detect any reference to the existence of non-white people in The Harvester. At the same time the main characters’ religious beliefs and practices are pretty syncretic and idiosyncratic, and this is presented without comment.
One must remember I suppose that at the time she was writing, a concern with nature and the environment had very much a right-wing rather than left-wing political label.