Season 189: Traditions, Myths & Legends

Cool theme, Geoff. Thanks for hosting this week. I dig mythology. Do you like Joseph Campbell? I'm a fan of his. So I chose this traditional song from The Classical Ukulele by John King. Thank you!

 
Great theme, although once again there is much scope for death, gloom and doom. But I have chosen one with a happy ending.

I picked it up from the English folk duo Spiers & Boden, who went on to form Bellowhead, and I have pretty well stolen their arrangment. But it turns out it goes back a long long way. In fact I get one of Geoff's bonus points for doing a Child Ballad (number 95 to be precise). Lyrics & chords on the YouTube page.

 
Amhrán Na Farraige - Lisa Hannigan, the first link posted is a drone song as far as I can tell. It's all in C. Just find the melody notes on the C string (best if played on a low G uke!) Arpeggiate and only play the G, C and E string, no A string. Sounds very pretty :) OH< forgot to say I was playing it on a Baritone so...on a reg soprano, low G, you would find the melody notes on the C string and only play the G and C string, plucking up.

Don't have the time to look at the second song right now.


Oh goodness. My kids would be very, very happy if I were able to learn the two songs from Song of the Sea, a movie which I recommend to everyone. (Streaming free on Amazon Prime, FWIW). I'll see if I can figure anything out!

Here are the songs, for your enjoyment, or in case anyone has a lead. I think the first is not a traditional song, but it's about traditional Celtic legends of selkies. The second seems to be traditional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUZ_smvqVQ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXhfbAG49No
 
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Is that what they call it at sea??? I know sailors get lonely, but isn't that a bit excessive???

I dinna ken; but sailors have a lot of strange traditions. "Sipping the Monkey" or "Drinking Nelson's Blood" reflect the theft of rum from the Rum barrel. And perhaps we should leave "Colder than Brass Balls" alone.
 
While I still have not been convinced that The Lord of the Rings is myth rather than history, I'll just put this here.

 
I dinna ken; but sailors have a lot of strange traditions. "Sipping the Monkey" or "Drinking Nelson's Blood" reflect the theft of rum from the Rum barrel. And perhaps we should leave "Colder than Brass Balls" alone.

Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

A brass monkey was a tray used to stack cannon balls. In cold weather the brass shrank more than the iron of the cannon balls so they would not fit properly. Least ways that's what I was told. Nothing to do with simian gonads.
 
SOTU 189 Legends: Camelot

I reckon there is no more Legendary Place in Great Britain than Camelot. Home of King Arthur and the Round Table. The castle is mentioned for the first time in Chrétien de Troyes' poem "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart", dating to the 1170s, "Upon a certain Ascension Day King Arthur had come from Caerleon, and had held a very magnificent court at Camelot as was fitting on such a day". Many ohers have cited Camelot in Story and Song down through the centuries. This is from the 1960 Lerner and Loew Musical of the same name. It won four Tony Awards in 1960 and was No 1 on Billboard's Pop Album List, 1961.
 
A first batch of comments.

UkeFoote: Atlantis. Great starter, Brian. Very different with the spoken intro about the legend of Atlantis. There was a TV series over here recently based (very loosely) on the Atlantis legend. My daughter watched it and I saw bits of it.

IamNoMan: Poor Old Horse. Excellent starter, Tommy. I knew you would come up trumps with traditional songs and I love shanties.

AlanDP: Sawney Bean. Good story and great song, Alan. I liked the outdoor setting for the song. Very appropriate. Definitely a legend towards the less true end of the spectrum. Well sung too. Definitely a legend towards the less true end of the spectrum. Well sung too.

Bonesoup: Sakura. Excellent. Really nice to get an instrumental.

YorkSteve: Prickle Eye Bush. Good one, Steve. First Child Ballad for the season. I've heard this one done by quite a few people and it can be dragged out but keeping it to three verses is about the right length. Led Zepplin did a version, "Gallows Pole" where they turned it on its head and he was hanged.

jagcorps: Concerning Hobbits. Very nice indeed. I expected someone would bring us something from LOTR Tolkein was well versed in the Myths and Legends of the peoples of the British Isles and he worked many of them, together with elements of classical mythology into his Middle Earth sagas.

IAmNoMan: Camelot. The Arthurian Legends. The greatest of our legends, brought to us by Chretien de Troyes, a Frenchman! That bit has always intrigued me though the stories were based on much older myths about a period in the fifth and sixth centuries after the end of the Roman Empire in Britain. I've never seen Camelot but it sounds like the musical is very much "based on" and loosely at that.

Please check I've included your entries in one of the playlists. PM me if there's anything missing or you think the entry is in the wrong playlist.
 
This is a song based on the old and popular "vanishing hitchhiker" urban legend. I have a special fondness for this urban legend because it was the first one I can remember personally encountering when I was a child. That is, I didn't actually encounter a vanishing hitchhiker, just the story that I came across in a book of ghost stories for kids. At the time I didn't realize that it was an urban legend. I just took it as a sweet little ghost story.

I have not been able to determine conclusively who wrote this song. It has been covered by, among others, Red Sovine, Mac Wiseman, and The Country Gentlemen. Most versions are singing only and do not include the entire story as it is usually related in the legend (that is, they leave out the part about the coat). Billy Edd Wheeler did a version which included spoken word bits and filled out the entire story. My best guess is that Wheeler wrote this song because 1) his is the more complete version of the legend, and 2) he was a one-man country song writing powerhouse who wrote numerous songs that were hits for other people although many country fans are unaware of him.

I am not a fan of spoken word bits, so in order to avoid having to do them, and to fill out the entire story as it should be told, I wrote two new stanzas to fill out the story (stanzas 3 and 7).

Tommy, if you don't already know this song, I suspect you will want to add it to your repertoire. This would make a great campfire song.



Just in case anyone is not familiar with the term "urban legend":
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/urban+legend
 
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I feel strongly that there is a wonderful ghost story behind the ancient Scottish song "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair." And yes, that is an homage to the Rolling Stones "Paint it Black" at the beginning. :)
 
Not sure it is wise to follow such a beautiful Ralf performance but here is an Australian traditional song.
The Drovers Dream. Had to do some tooting (alto recorder) for a Tootler season of course.
 
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The Harvest Super Moon just started into eclipse here in PA. There are high cirrus clouds so we got the added bonus of a rainbow around the moon! What Joy!

This is a song based on the old and popular "vanishing hitchhiker" urban legend. I have a special fondness for this urban legend because it was the first one I can remember personally encountering when I was a child. That is, I didn't actually encounter a vanishing hitchhiker, just the story that I came across in a book of young adult ghost stories. At the time I didn't realize that it was an urban legend. I just took it as a sweet little ghost story.

I have not been able to determine conclusively who wrote this song. It has been covered by, among others, Red Sovine, Mac Wiseman, and The Country Gentlemen. Most versions are singing only and do not include the entire story as it is usually related in the legend (that is, they leave out the part about the coat). Billy Edd Wheeler did a version which included spoken word bits and filled out the entire story. My best guess is that Wheeler wrote this song because 1) his is the more complete version of the legend, and 2) he was a one-man country song writing powerhouse who wrote numerous songs that were hits for other people although many country fans are unaware of him.

I am not a fan of spoken word bits, so in order to avoid having to do them, and to fill out the entire story as it should be told, I wrote two new stanzas to fill out the story (stanzas 3 and 7).

Tommy, if you don't already know this song, I suspect you will want to add it to your repertoire. This would make a great campfire song.



Just in case anyone is not familiar with the term "urban legend":
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/urban+legend


"Bringing Mary Home" was written by Chaw Mank and Ben Kingston. The storyline was based a Twilight Zone episode. When you mentioned urban legends earlier I wondered if you were thinking about this one or Phantom 309. The Vanishing Hitchhiker is in my repertoire but I do it as a first person ghost story.
 
The Harvest Super Moon just started into eclipse here in PA. There are high cirrus clouds so we got the added bonus of a rainbow around the moon! What Joy!



"Bringing Mary Home" was written by Chaw Mank and Ben Kingston. The storyline was based a Twilight Zone episode. When you mentioned urban legends earlier I wondered if you were thinking about this one or Phantom 309. The Vanishing Hitchhiker is in my repertoire but I do it as a first person ghost story.

Okay, thanks for that information, but I'm pretty sure the Twilight Zone episode was based on the urban legend. The episode in question was from 1960, and the story I read was published in the mid-50s. There are older versions of it than that.
 
The Harvest Super Moon just started into eclipse here in PA. There are high cirrus clouds so we got the added bonus of a rainbow around the moon! What Joy!

My wife saw the eclipse. We were told the red moon should be about 4.00am local time. I woke at about 3.30 but the moon kept disappearing behind the clouds. When it did show it wasn't red at all. Big disappointment.

It's 5.10am now and clear skies with the moon still half eclipsed. Just popped outside and got a couple of photos.
 
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We had a clear night here in Wisconsin. Got this one from a tripod.

mrt-moon.jpg
 
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