They offered tribute to strangeness because it was strangeness that they appreciated most in the world when they were alive.
A long short story, good for a single sitting. A professor who’s been studying an ancient Irish stone tomb is returning to it just before Christmas, curious about the tale he’s been told about what happens there on the shortest day of the year. The ghosts in the tomb dread the possibility, as it may block the light – the only light they receive all year, and which they subsist on for the next year. More than that will spoil it for you. I always enjoy Toibin in short form. Really nicely turned.