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Old 03-03-2006, 03:48 PM   #90
Anguirel
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The 1590s
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Manawyth had at first thought, as he sat at the hearth with the foreign harp in his prematurely hardened hands, that he had best stick to his oblique promise to sing of his own story. But as he plucked at the strings gently, and the hours grew darker and darker, he realised that he was neither mentally nor verbally prepared for such an undertaking. In practical terms, many changes would need to be made, to keep the Rohirrim from despising him for insulting their kind. But more importantly, the memories of the days in the company of the dark host of Caerissin, the horror of the Hornburg, he loss of poor Orwindoc, the one of his brothers least quick to anger, the shortest one, with kind, dreaming eyes...

It would make a fine song, he realised, a beautiful song, but not at such a time and in such a company. It would be six hundred verses long, each beginning with "They went to Caerissin," and ending with "Crebain-meat they." He looked from the pretty, hesitant Saeryn, to the jovial halfling to whom he owed his reception. On these, he could not inflict his bloody past. Tonight another ballad would have to do.

Yet he was a Dunlending, and sadness grew in his nature like ivy on a proud, regal oak. He would have none of the light, brisk, coarse, witty carousal-songs of the mark. No, he would show the Horse-Lords of the beauty of sorrow on which the remnants of his people prided themselves. In such a mood he rose.

"I will to you sing," he started, "a song known by every true-hearted man in Dunland," (ha! many would not admit to the existence of such beings!) "yet one that comes not from us, nor from your country."

"This is a tale of the old days, and the King in the North at Annuminas, and a voyage he bade be made unto distant Forochel. Our legends say it thus, that a Dunlending was among the crew, and alone survived to sing...but to the song itself..."

He was proud of the short speech he had delivered. He found the Rohirric tongue easier to construct in the high style of song.

"Of course, we sing it in our tongue, but in the south changed it has been somewhat, so that our languages meet. I hope that when our tongues meet again, in the age upon us now, they will bring happier times than those of which I shall now sing."

A long strum on the harp, echoing about the rafters of the hall. And he began.

The King sits in Annuminas
Drinking the blude-ried wine:
'O quhar will I get a guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine?'
Up and spank an eldernmon,
Sat at the king's richt knee
'Pengolodin is the best sailor,
That sails upon the sea.'

The King has written a braid letter,
And signed it wi'his hand;
And sent it to Pengolodin,
Was walking on the sand.
The first line that Pengolod red,
A loud lauch lauched he:
The next line that Pengolod red,
The teir blinded his e'e.

'O quha is this has don this deid,
This ill deid don to me,
To send me out this time o'the yier,
To sail upon the sea?
Mak haste, mak haste, my mirry men all,
Our guid schip sails the morne.'
'O say na sae, my master deir,
For I feir a deadlie storme.

Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone
Wi' the auld moone in hir arme;
And I feir, I feir my deir master
That we will come to harme.'
O their North nobles wer richt laith
To weet their cork-heil'd schoone;
Bot lang owre a' the play wer played,
Thair hats they swam aboone.

O lang, lang may thair ladies sit
Wi' thair fans into their hand,
Or eir they se Pengolodin
Com sailing to the land.
O lang, land may the ladies sit
Wi' thair gold kems in their hair,
Waiting for thair ain deir lords
For they'll se thame na mair.

Haf owre, haf owre to Angleton,
It's fiftie fadom deip:
And thair lies guid Pengolodin,
Wi' the North lords at his feit.


The ballad, with inconsequential alterations, is a version of Sir Patrick Spens, one of the traditional Scottish Child Ballads by an unknown hand.
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