George William Russell was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter and Irish nationalist. A lifelong friend of William Butler Years, he often wrote on mysticism, and was a central figure in the group of devotees of theosophy which met in Dublin. When Russell was a young man, he wrote a philosophic article under the pseudonym “Æon.” The printer mangled it, and Æon came out Æ. For the rest of his life, Russell would write under that diphthong.