The Night Face.
Raven's Lochlanna companion exclaims:
"''S guts!'" (XI, p. 646)
- which makes me ask, "Whose?"
The interaction between Raven and Elfavy is built around a song:
Cold blows the wind to my true love and gently drops the rain
I only had but one true love and in greenwood she lies slain
I'll do as much for my true love as any young man may
I'll sit and mourn along her grave for a twelve-month and a day
When the twelve months and one day was past the ghost began to speak:
"Why sit thou'st here along my grave and will not let me sleep?"
"There's one thing that I want sweetheart, there's one thing that I crave
And that is a kiss from your lily white lips then I'll go from your grave"
"My lips they are as cold as clay my breath smells earthy strong
And if you kiss my cold clay lips your days they won't be long
-copied from here.
I can comment only that I dislike the words but I have not heard the song yet.
The lines quoted from Hamlet seem relevant.
For the song (with different wording) in Anderson's text, see III, pp. 574-575, VI, p.601 and XII, p. 659.
The rereading of The Night Face is finished. Next on the agenda is "The Sharing of Flesh."
4 comments:
I have to keep weeding spam.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sorry about the spam problem!
I think the song you quoted from THE MIGHT FACE might have been been based by Poul Anderson on Medieval Danish ballads. It reminds me of the scene in THE BROKEN SWORD where, after Skafloc roused Orm from his grave mound, the dead man spoke to his grieving widow.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You can hear "The Unquiet Grave" on YouTube.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I did have "The Unquiet Grave" in the back of my mind. I looked it up and that ballad goes back to 1400 in England, with variants in Scandinavia.
Ad astra! Sean
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