Visit The *EVEN NEWER* Barrow-Downs Photo Page |
11-06-2009, 05:51 PM | #3401 |
Stormdancer of Doom
|
Mithalwen, and Flander's Fields. How Downish, and how WW1, and how Tolkien, and .... aw, golly. I just love it. It's halfway to a Rohirric Dirge.
"Red fell the dew in Rammas Echor."
__________________
...down to the water to see the elves dance and sing upon the midsummer's eve. |
11-10-2009, 12:57 PM | #3402 | |
Laconic Loreman
|
I'd like to point to Mith's sig again:
Quote:
But ya, very touching program, and Mith's signature brings out the history of November 9th, as that day (for many different reasons) should never be forgotten.
__________________
Fenris Penguin
Last edited by Boromir88; 11-10-2009 at 01:15 PM. |
|
11-10-2009, 03:37 PM | #3403 | |
Wight of the Old Forest
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Unattended on the railway station, in the litter at the dancehall
Posts: 3,355
|
Quote:
To be young and full of not yet disappointed hopes... But in a different key: Is that all that we were fighting for - bananas and sex shops, nothing more? Welcome to the western dream, welcome to the cheap labour scheme (Attila the Stockbroker, Market Sector One)
__________________
Und aus dem Erebos kamen viele seelen herauf der abgeschiedenen toten.- Homer, Odyssey, Canto XI |
|
11-11-2009, 06:34 AM | #3404 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,916
|
Pitchwife you are a cynic...
I suppose I was very young at the time and had had a sniff of the Eastern bloc having been to Romania in 87 and Russia in 88 - even the glimpses of Ceaucescu's world tourists could see was horrible. Nuclear war had seemed a real possibility only a few years earlier - at least to a child's understanding so the Autumn of 89 really seemed a hopeful time. And as Boro said it did enable people to go "home" and make contact with lost families. A great friend of ours was able to return to the Ukraine and it was unbelievably emotional for him having been marched out of his village as a teenager so long before. I put home in quote marks only because he and his like had a love and respect for England that puts most of her birth children to shame..
__________________
“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
11-11-2009, 03:28 PM | #3405 |
Wight of the Old Forest
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Unattended on the railway station, in the litter at the dancehall
Posts: 3,355
|
Cynic? Well, maybe... Certainly a disillusioned idealist, like most cynics.
Don't get me wrong, Mith and Boro - it's very kind of you to care so much for our reunification and the peaceful revolution in the Eastern bloc, and I do appreciate it (no irony). But let me explain where I come from. I grew up near the former German/German border, in what was called the 'Hof Gap' in the military mind games of the era. If the Cold War had ever turned hot, even on a 'merely' conventional scale, my hometown would have been right on the frontline. And nuclear war was a real possibility in the early 80's, with Reagan talking about the Evil Empire and blithely joking at a time that the bombardment of Russia would begin in 5 minutes, and the likes of Chernenko and Andropov on the other side. I have relatives in East Germany - most of the family on my father's side - , so I'd been to the GDR several times as a child in the 70's, and once more as a freshman student in 1983. I found the reality I observed during those visits incredibly depressing, and I certainly don't mourn the demise of the old system. When the Wall came down, and the Trabis came rolling through the streets of my hometown, and our relatives came popping in for a surprise visit, I was beside myself with excitement and hope - hope that East and West could now work together and build a better society than had existed on either side of the Iron Curtain before. Rather naive, maybe - but I think we had the chance then. And we botched it. Again, don't get me wrong. I'm profoundly grateful that nuclear war between East and West is no longer a threat (though it didn't take us long to find some new enemies and Axes of Evil). I'm grateful and glad I can go visit my aunts, uncles and cousins and their kids without applying for visa months before, and have an open talk with them without having to worry that our words might be reported to the Stasi*. I'm happy that they can travel anywhere they want, and I'm positively delighted to see my cousin's son grow up with manga, Marilyn Manson and Peter Jackson's horrible movies. And I admire the achievements I've been able to observe during my visits in the last 20 years. But 20 years after the unification, workers in the East still get worse wages and pensions than their colleagues. For every thriving town, there's regions that have become social/economic wastelands, suffering from unemployment and overaging, deserted by the young and capable who Go West no longer in search of freedom but of better jobs (and who's to blame them?) and claimed by Neo-Nazi scum as 'National Liberated Zones'. And in the West, the same parties who were responsible for electing former Nazis into the highest offices of state some decades ago still decline to even consider working together with the former SED members on the Left, many of whom have at least faced their past and admitted their errors. None of this, of course, is the fault of the courageous people in the East who took their anger and hopes to the streets in the autumn of '89. We, the West, failed them. We should have striven more for a unification that really deserved the name, instead of simply annexing the 'new countries' to the old Federal Republic - and that should have included paying more respect to the East (not the old system, but those who brought it down, and also those who managed to lead a decent life under difficult circumstances while it lasted) and admitting that the West never was the paradise as which it painted itself on TV. Sorry for this lengthy (and rather un-Tolkien-related) rant, but I felt a little elucidation of my admittedly elliptic and sarcastic last post was called for. *(Family history: one of my father's cousins, an honest believer in the system, worked for the Stasi (GDR State Security). We never met him before the unification, because he would have felt duty-bound to report what was discussed with the visitors from the West, but he also felt it would be wrong to inform on his relatives, so he rather chose to be absent from our family reunions, much as he would have liked to meet his long lost cousin. Shows the contortions of conscience the system inflicted on those involved in it, and the moral dilemmas and shades of grey that tend to be over-simplified in retrospection.)
__________________
Und aus dem Erebos kamen viele seelen herauf der abgeschiedenen toten.- Homer, Odyssey, Canto XI |
11-12-2009, 02:01 PM | #3406 |
Fair and Cold
|
As someone who lives in Ukraine right now, I must say that while tourists who visit occasionally might have a ball around here, people actually living here don't have quite the same experience. Ain't nothing cynical with pointing that out.
Having said that, I like Mith's sig. I remember the changes were an exciting time, as much as I could grasp the excitement, being so young.
__________________
~The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories. This is one of mine~ |
11-13-2009, 09:00 AM | #3407 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,916
|
I do appreciate that and certainly the flock of long lost relatives who took advantage of his kinship to relocate over here bear witness to it. And a couple of years later I travelled fairly widely in the East and saw that it would be a long journey. However it can't kill the memory of a moment in time there was change and hope.
__________________
“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
11-13-2009, 08:14 PM | #3408 |
Odinic Wanderer
|
I am writting because I cannot rep
It was very nice to read Pitchwife's post about the german unification. These days all the television shows is telling a very beautiful, but one sided story about the whole thing. . . of course I am too young to have experienced this thing properly, but from the few studies I have done, it seems to me that much was neglected in the unification process. It seems that the west said "now we are doing things this way" rather than "lets make this work", it is still a great event and worth celebrating though.
The danish singer-songwriter Sebastian wrote a brilliant song about this, called "the new europe" |
11-13-2009, 08:49 PM | #3409 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,528
|
Interesting quote regarding the St. Brice's Day Massacre, Rune -- a little known but brutal event in English history. You have to sympathize with the Danes; however, one also must look at the brutal raids conducted by the Danes against the English for several consecutive years that precipitated that event as well. I don't believe the word detente had been used at that period in time.
A horrifying but 'well-justified' entry regarding the burning of Danes inside St. Fridewide's church in Oxford apears in a royal charter of 1004: ''[Since a] decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and thus this decree was to be put into effect even as far as death, those Danes who dwelt in the afore-mentioned town, striving to escape death, entered this sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make refuge and defence for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs; but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the planks and burnt, as it seems, this church with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards, with God's aid, it was renewed by me.'' The rebuilt church is now called Christ Church Cathedral, although I am not sure Christ would have approved of the building.
__________________
And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
11-14-2009, 09:20 AM | #3410 |
Woman of Secret Shadow
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: in hollow halls beneath the fells
Posts: 4,607
|
Rune do you listen to Rebellion or has that song been recorded by someone else too (or is their version a cover)? I liked them a lot when I was younger.
__________________
He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
11-14-2009, 09:51 AM | #3411 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,164
|
More evidence--as if any were needed--of Britain's grisly past and a salutary reminder of the madness of 'ethnic cleansing'.
Rune's signature is particularly apt for those Downers who attend Oxonmoot, for St. Frideswide--in whose church the Danish families sought sanctuary--is by persistent legend credited with founding Oxford and there are several sites in the town that still bear witness to her story. The daughter of a Mercian king and vowed to chastity, she resisted a particularly vulgar and insistent suitor by blinding him with a thunderbolt. She restored his sight with water from a well that miraculously appeared, a well that still exists in the churchyard in Binsley. St. Frideswide died in Oxford in 727. Between the choir and the north aisle in the cathedral that replaced her priory is her shrine. (Nothing I think commemorates the atrocity against the Danish dead.) According to my Insight Guide to Oxford, that shrine is Oxford's heart and beginning. A link to this part of Oxford's history: Massacre at St. Frideswide's Perhaps it's worth a walk next Oxonmoot to see.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Last edited by Bêthberry; 11-14-2009 at 09:58 AM. |
11-14-2009, 11:56 AM | #3412 | |
Odinic Wanderer
|
Quote:
I stumpled upon the song while looking through weird viking videos on youtube. I probably won't become a fan, but I might buy the album with that song about Canute the Great (The King of Danish Pride). Anyways the St. Brice Day Massacre is one of the most interesting subjects in viking history, especially because so little is known about it. It seems unlikely that they really intended to kill all danes in england, simply because in some areas there would have been too many (especially in places like East Anglia) and they would have been too mixed with the Anglo-Saxon population. Then there is the twist about Gunhilde, was she killed in the massacre or is it something made up by later day historians in order to make Sweyn look more noble? (revenge is apparently a more acceptable reason for invading, than greed or lust for power) |
|
11-15-2009, 08:42 AM | #3413 |
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,645
|
Those are poignant lines! Alas, I'm not familiar with enough German literature to identify the source and its author.
__________________
'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
11-15-2009, 01:50 PM | #3414 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,164
|
It's not from German literature, but Austrian. Der Traum ein Leben, one of the dramatic masterpieces of Franz Grillparzer.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
11-15-2009, 04:11 PM | #3415 |
Woman of Secret Shadow
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: in hollow halls beneath the fells
Posts: 4,607
|
Neither was I until Bêthberry enlighted me (thanks! ). I only knew the lines from the song Schlaf im Mohn by a German band called Orplid that I'm quite in love with.
__________________
He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
11-15-2009, 08:00 PM | #3416 |
Odinic Wanderer
|
I know this is a view that is out of fashion, but historically Austrians are considered German, just like Saxons or Prussians. It is only after 1871 that some people start to differentiate between Austrians and Germans, now mr. Franz died 1872. . . I would say his writtings technically are German literature.
|
11-15-2009, 10:46 PM | #3417 | ||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,164
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
||
11-16-2009, 11:24 AM | #3418 | |
Odinic Wanderer
|
(I belive it is more than a question about language)
Quote:
|
|
11-16-2009, 01:42 PM | #3419 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,164
|
I think that second part in particular is quite sig-worthy.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
11-17-2009, 06:57 AM | #3420 |
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,645
|
I agree.
__________________
'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
11-23-2009, 12:52 PM | #3421 | ||
Woman of Secret Shadow
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: in hollow halls beneath the fells
Posts: 4,607
|
Quote:
Anyway I don't know if it's been nominated yet, but I quite like Nienna's sig. Quote:
__________________
He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
||
11-23-2009, 04:55 PM | #3422 |
Flame Imperishable
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Right here
Posts: 3,995
|
Seconded. I read that one and I just started mentally singing it.
__________________
Welcome to the Barrow Do-owns Forum / Such a lovely place
|
11-23-2009, 08:40 PM | #3423 |
The Werewolf's Companion
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Moon
Posts: 3,032
|
I've already memorized it and sing it to myself when I'm really bored. It gets stuck in my head whenever I glance at it...like now, for instance.
__________________
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. Double Fenris
|
11-23-2009, 10:42 PM | #3424 |
La Belle Dame sans Merci
|
Amusing that after all the last minute work that went into ripping off Viva la Vida, my twenty second reinterpretation of a Mulan song is what I shall die famous for...
__________________
peace
|
11-24-2009, 09:56 PM | #3425 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,164
|
Quote:
I have a relative who is very into industrial and experimental music, even going to concerts in Germany, reporting back to the family, and gifting us with CDs to expand our musical repertoire.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
|
12-04-2009, 03:30 PM | #3426 |
Woman of Secret Shadow
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: in hollow halls beneath the fells
Posts: 4,607
|
Not on a worldwide scale, but I honestly didn't expect any (non-German) Downer to know of them.
__________________
He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
12-31-2009, 02:02 PM | #3427 |
Shade with a Blade
|
Saucepan Man! Always good to see another Pogues fan out there.
__________________
Stories and songs. |
12-31-2009, 02:14 PM | #3428 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Facing the world's troubles with Christ's hope!
Posts: 1,735
|
Andisigil, love your signature!
__________________
I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Their old, familiar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeatof peace on earth, good-will to men! ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
12-31-2009, 07:04 PM | #3429 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: The Deepest Forges of Ered Luin
Posts: 746
|
__________________
Even as fog continues to lie in the valleys, so does ancient sin cling to the low places, the depression in the world consciousness. |
01-01-2010, 09:31 AM | #3430 | |
Fluttering Enchantment
|
Alona's new one is pretty crazy awesome...
Quote:
__________________
Comme une étoile amarante Comme un papillon de nuit C'est la lumière qui m'attire La flamme qui m'éblouit Fenris Muffin
|
|
01-02-2010, 07:13 AM | #3431 |
Flame Imperishable
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Right here
Posts: 3,995
|
I seem to remember that a while back, someone had a sig saying something to the effect of: "It is those who ask the same questions, not those who come to the same conclusions that are our friends." Does anyone remember what it was or at least who had it?
__________________
Welcome to the Barrow Do-owns Forum / Such a lovely place
|
01-05-2010, 07:50 PM | #3432 | |
Corpus Cacophonous
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: A green and pleasant land
Posts: 8,468
|
Quote:
But now that the Christmas season is over, it's time for something completely different - and rather silly, but nevertheless still a favourite song.
__________________
Do you mind? I'm busy doing the fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind! |
|
01-08-2010, 07:22 AM | #3433 |
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,058
|
I like Loslote's Orwell signature. And don't forget 'Four legs good, two legs better'!
__________________
Music alone proves the existence of God. |
01-08-2010, 08:01 PM | #3434 |
The Werewolf's Companion
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Moon
Posts: 3,032
|
Thanks! Animal Farm is one of my favorite books. I've been reading it over and over since I was in elementary school, and it never gets old. My copy is almost as beaten up as my LotR!
__________________
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. Double Fenris
|
01-09-2010, 06:18 AM | #3435 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,916
|
Though in the current weather conditions the four legged seem to have the edge... haven't seen a sloberador fall over yet....
__________________
“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
01-10-2010, 12:42 AM | #3436 | |
The Werewolf's Companion
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Moon
Posts: 3,032
|
Mnemo's
Quote:
__________________
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. Double Fenris
|
|
01-18-2010, 09:17 PM | #3437 | |
The Werewolf's Companion
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Moon
Posts: 3,032
|
I love Glirdan's
Quote:
__________________
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. Double Fenris
|
|
01-18-2010, 09:33 PM | #3438 |
The Sweetest Spoiler
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: from beneath you it giggles incessantly
Posts: 5,810
|
I was just saying earlier today that I need to read that book again. Ah, Animal Farm, how I love thee....
__________________
"My heart always cowers behind the defense of my wit." Friendship is two pals munching on a well-cooked face together. Fenris bookworm.
|
01-19-2010, 06:24 AM | #3439 |
Odinic Wanderer
|
The other day I saw a man reading 1984 on the T, just the sigth made me depressed. That book is the sadest thing I ever knew, but I could not put it down. . .what I am saying is this: Orwell made me a masochist.
|
01-22-2010, 07:55 PM | #3440 | |
Mighty Quill
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Walking off to look for America
Posts: 2,346
|
Okay. I don't know why this humoured me so much, but I really like Hookbill's signature. The fact that it says that he read it once somehow got to me...
Quote:
__________________
The Party Doesn't Start Until You're Dead.
|
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|