I've long known about the Scottish traditional song "The Twa Corbies" ("The Two Crows"). It tells of two crows talking about the body of a young knight that they've found, and plan to eat. They go into detail about how he's been abandoned by "his hawk, his hounds, and his lady fair," and how they'll eat him and then line their nest with his hair. It's a fairly gruesome song by modern standards, but by medieval European standards it wasn't outlandish at all.
Here's Old Blind Dogs with a live rendition of the song.
Interestingly, translating the song from Gaelic to older Northern European languages proves that its words and meanings are entirely understandable, and the song fits those cultures as well. Perhaps the common Viking heritage of those parts of the world has something to do with that.
Here's a version translated into Danish by folklorist Svend Grundtvig (1824–1883). It was re-translated into Norwegian, and is here performed by Norwegian folk rock group Folque on their eponymous first album in 1974.
Interestingly, the Scottish "Twa Corbies" finds a less sinister echo in the seventeenth-century English ballad "The Three Ravens". In this rather different rendition, the three birds discuss a dead knight they have found. His pregnant lover collects his body and buries him before dying at his graveside, while his dogs and hawks protect his body from scavengers. The song ends:
"God send euery gentleman
Such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman".
Here's a performance of the song by The Black Country Three in 1966.
Songs from a very different time.
Peter
I am oddly reminded of how "kids today" react to Weird Al's 'Christmas At Ground Zero'....
ReplyDelete"Look, it was the Cold War. We could laugh or we we could cry. Laughing was more fun, so we did that. Also, we do NOT care about 'microaggressions'... if you thought you had MEGATONS aimed at you, what's a MICROanything?"
The version by Steeleye Span is good as is most of their music from the sixties and seventies.
ReplyDeleteAs a former "military man" in the late 50's and early 60's, I spent 3 years, 17 days, 8 hours and 32 minutes ( +/- according to the ships log) on a WestPac aircraft carrier, keeping the ships radars running. That meant three annual tours of duty out in the Western Pacific. Each time we headed out, the crew all got seven shots(true vaccines), four in one arm, three in the other, and one time an extra shot in the butt. I do not remember what all those shots were for, but I do recall I never got sick. I recall one was for Scarlet Fever, another for Yellow Fever. Perhaps some of your readers can remember the rest. I am curious, because I know those "vaccines" were effective in preventing the sickness they were made for. Never heard of anybody dropping dead from any of the shots, although there may have been a few. There was a small number of crew I knew of that had various reactions, but nobody died. I do not consider these mRNA shots a vaccine, they operate in a totally different way than a classic vaccine. My son has accused me of being an "anti-vaxxer" - which I am not - I have had many different vaccines during my lifetime, but I am wary of these new laboratory concoctions designed to make your cells generate various proteins. Should I be? That's the big question. I have sailed through this Covid emergency with flying colors, never needing any medicines or shots, but now my son has accused me of being a deadly menace to literally all of humanity for not having been "jabbed". I remain confused... and saddened.
ReplyDeleteSongs from that time reflected the reality of that time. That reality included death. Frequent death of friends, family and acquaintances. People then had a much closer knowledge of death than most people now have. The culture of the time, which included songs echos that fact. Modern society, especially American society does not handle the subject of death well. Which is ironic so since death is probably the only truly universal thing we all must face.
ReplyDeleteBob: The one in the butt was the GG (Gamma Globulin) shot. Remember you couldn't sit down for several hours afterward? I got mine in Saigon and was in a troop seat on a C-130 shortly thereafter to get to my "permanent" location. I did NOT tighten the seat belt very much but that didn't make much difference. Heh. My shot records, all three books, are in a box somewhere around here.
ReplyDeleteHeh. You have ships' logs and I have travel vouchers.
Tell your son he is flat out wrong. The government (the CDC) had to change the definition of "vaccine" after it was pointed out that mRNAs did not actually work by the then-current method of "vaccine." Only then did Uncle Sam "fix" the problem by actually changing the definition of "vaccine."
Primary source is at the CDC, but here is a secondary source: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html
Also see Tucker Carlson #61 for that and scary more.
Thanks for being out there. I spent time in-country as well as Guam and Okinawa in support You did far more than your share and I hope your son is honest and man enough to recognize that. Here, retired Air Force avionics.
Bob:
ReplyDeleteThe inventor of that mRNA "vax", applied for a patent back in '06, but was refused, and the medical patent board stated that it in no way qualified for that label, as it did NOTHING that was required to meet any vaccine standard. BTW, that inventor was Fauci, who started collecting patents for his covid19 in '98(!). The .gov lied about it being an emergency invention in 2020.
Also, life insurance companies are seeing death numbers in prime working ages (22-55?) that have NEVER been seen prior to the vaxx being mandated by so many groups. Look it up.