Challenge The Celtic Song Challenge|All New Songs Now Claimed

What am I even doing? I already have two plot bunnies pestering me, what am I even doing trying to catch a third? Oh well, here goes anyway.

Edit: Crud, I don't even know that song. Honestly I was hoping to get a 2. That one I know.

Edit again: I might not get around to this for a while.

 

Don't worry Cowgirl Jedi 1701, I won't be getting around of this for a while either. I've got half a dozen challenges from 2015 and 2016 to finish first

 

Chyntuck: I shouldn't, I shouldn't... but since there's no deadline I might just as well sign up.

I know that refrain quite well. (And there was this one time when I successfully resisted it.)

I was surprised at how many times different sites managed to mangle the lyrics for "Barbriallen" (also known as "Barbara Allen") when I was writing the OP--it's green buds, not green bugs a swellin'--and I wound up typing them down very fast whilst listening to the Simon & Garfunkel version. So no lyrics for now.

But here are some videos:

Spoiler

Simon & Garfunkel:


Emmylou Harris:


Blackmore's Night:

 

Mira_Jade: Oh, my Scottish blood is pumping to write a good fic now - you have such a good selection here, and a few that I now need to check out for myself. Thanks for hosting this challenge, guys!

The old music (to sort of quote Christy Moore) was indeed calling to me when I was working on the song list. You're welcome.

And you have done well with your song: I'm going to assume that most people reading this already know that "Down by the Sally Gardens" is a poem by William Butler Yeats set to music.

The poem

Videos:

Spoiler

Maura O'Connell with Karen Matheson:


Clannad:


Loreena McKennitt:

 

AzureAngel2: So, I can chose between "14. Down in the Willow Garden" and "6. The Banks of Claudy" now, right?

That sounds about right--just let us know which one you decide to go with.

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Cowgirl Jedi 1701: You have received "The Death of Queen Jane." You may remember that one of the items in the list of warnings in the OP was "a mind-scarring description of Caesarian delivery"--well, this is the song to which I was referring. Interestingly, the song is about a Queen Jane and a King Harry, which calls to mind Jane Seymour and Henry VIII; but according to what I found online, the song pre-dates those people and their royal marriage--and to nitpick, Jane Seymour had a normal labor, unlike the song's Queen Jane, and then died of complications days afterwards.

Apparently, these are all of the versions of this song collected by Francis James Child

Videos:

Spoiler

Joan Baez:


Méav Ní Mhaolchatha:


Loreena McKennitt:

 

I already finished my fan fic challenge, just need a beta!

DarthUncle?

Kahara?

And I went for "14. Down in the Willow Garden".

 

I will load it up when it is beta-ted nicely. But actually where does it go then?

 

AzureAngel2: I already finished my fan fic challenge, just need a beta!

That was fast! When you have it edited and posted, just post here with a link, and we will add it to the index.

So, even though this song already has its story, I'll talk a little bit about it: "Down by the Willow Garden" is another murder ballad, an American variant of an apparently lost Irish song, and it features another kriffslider--not to mention a case of what modern profilers would call (at least on television) "overkill."

This version, by Kristin Hersh, is far too spooky for me not to share with everyone here. You are all welcome.

Spoiler

 

I know that particular ballad, because after listening to a certain Nick Cave doing an album on murder ballads a long time ago, I made some intense research.

And I also know the other ballad quiet well but that did not grant me tickets for the Loreena McKennitt ticket here in Berlin at all... . They were sold out so quickly.

Plus I love Celtic music, even long before I was the AuPair girl (summer 1996 until summer 1997) of a woman whose father was one of the founders of the Gaelic league in Ireland. (Long story!)

 

AzureAngel2: My notes on the songs are meant for everyone taking part in the challenge, or just reading along in silence--and not only the persons to whom they are assigned--so I hope you don't think I was talking down to you. Without any actual confirmation, I try not to assume that people will know the songs they get, or that they won't know them.

I have never had the opportunity to hear Loreena McKennitt perform. But it sounds as though I wouldn't have moved quickly enough if I had--I'm not at all surprised to hear that concert sold out with great speed.

 

Pandora: I did not feel like you talked me down.

As a Vader fan girl I have strange tastes at times that clash with my sunny kindergarten nature. And I love murder ballads since I sat in a front row seat at my grammar school watching Berthold Brecht´s "Drei Groschenoper" with school pals. The day after I searched frantically for the CD. I simply love music!

This is why I am so grateful to you for coming up with this challenge! And clever Kahara for pointing it out to me.
Plus DarthUncle being my beta tonight and having the strength to drag me into bed soon.

I wish all the other participants a lot of fun writing! I certainly had fun tonight!

 

And everybody dies. Really, that's every single Celtic song ever written! Irish ancestry on both sides here, so yeah, it's all too familiar...

 

AzureAngel2: When I was in college, I had a friend who, as a kid, had a crush on Darth Vader. This would have been years before the prequel trilogy, and before anyone knew of the boy who would be Vader's ballad-level obsession for his One and Only True Love. (That sort of ruined the fictional crush for some people.) So I suppose many of us have a darker side lurking underneath a more socially acceptable exterior.

This is why I am so grateful to you for coming up with this challenge! And clever @Kahara for pointing it out to me.
Plus @DarthUncle being my beta tonight and having the strength to drag me into bed soon.

You are very welcome, but I want to emphasis that I am co-hosting this challenge with Findswoman, and that this has been our joint project of musical love.

I am glad to hear that you have had fun with your story, and we shall add it to the index soon.

*

Mistress_Renata: And everybody dies. Really, that's every single Celtic song ever written!

There's not much else I can add to that.

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A Few Notes:

*I have edited the post on "The Knoxville (Oxford/Wexford) Girl"--first, because I remembered the title of the American variant incorrectly as "The Nashville Girl," and second to refine the video selections. There are now three videos--Nick Cave and the Wilburn Brothers with "The Knoxville Girl," and Shirley & Dolly Collins with "The Oxford Girl." It is interesting to compare the Cave and Wilburn Brothers versions--especially what lines they chose to include, and to leave out.

*Also, I want to stress that, for the obvious reasons of space, I can only post a fraction of the recordings of these songs that you can find just by browsing youtube. So--for those previously unfamiliar with this music--if you like what I have been posting, I hope it inspires you to go out into the internet and find even more.

ETA:
*On that note: I have to share this version of "The Knoxville Girl" by Lixian Hantover (who I hadn't ever heard of before today) that I came across this afternoon.

 

Findswoman: Yes, it's perfectly fine to discuss developing ideas in the thread--especially since, given that fanfiction is an activity that many of us conduct entirely behind the masks of our screennames, this is the best place to do so.

I'll go into my thoughts on your blacked out text underneath the following spoiler cut:

Spoiler

That is an interesting possibility--that the stick in the song could be, in the Star Wars galaxy, the Tusken Raiders' gaderfii. As for whether or not the woman would have a stick of her own--in the movies (I haven't any idea what Legends or this new EU have done with the Tuskens, but I suspect that they have left them to be mostly a mystery) there is one single glimpse, only a few seconds long, of a Tusken woman--if you blink, you might easily miss it, but it is right before Anakin starts killing the village in AOTC. She does not have a stick, and one of the males quickly moves in front of her, and the child with her, in a protective stance. So it is possible that the gaderfii is generally considered to be a male weapon, and it would be unlikely that a woman would even have one.

In general: going off the tiny scraps in the movies such as the one I mentioned above, I think the Tusken Raiders' culture--or at least, and keeping possible cultural differences in mind, that of the tribe seen in AOTC--would be patriarchal in nature. Also--"The Knoxville Girl," and its predecessors, tell a story that shows some of the worst brutality of a patriarchal culture, so there is that.

It can be tricky to write about the Tusken Raiders--and I probably don't need to say why. But I wouldn't ever say it can't be done--and especially now that the official canon is done with them, there is a lot of worldbuilding to do there.

Anyway, I should probably stop here before this essay becomes any longer.

 

As a huge lover of celtic songs, this is right up my ally!

 

mavjade: You have received "The Parting Glass." Surprise!: there is no true love or murder in this one, only a night of some social drinking. It was a parting song--sung at the end of a gathering of friends (to quote the wikipedia article)--and was the most popular of its kind in Scotland before it was outshone by Robert Burns' "Auld Lang Syne." There are still many, many versions of this song floating about, though, so it is not at all forgotten.

Lyrics (though the versions I know don't include all of these verses)

Videos (1/16: edited to add The Wailin' Jennys' version):

Spoiler

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem:


Loreena McKennitt:


The Wailin' Jennys:

 

Believe it or not, I actually have 3 or 4 CDs of Celtic music.

I think Barbara Allen was originally a poem too. I think it was written either by Tennyson or by Lord Byron, but I can't remember which.

The lyrics to mine definitely put me in mind of Padmé, but I gotta think on it. I think this one will have to wait until I tend to the previously acquired plot bunnies some more.

 

Well, since I finally got around to listening to a Steeleye Span song last night (Flowers of Holland - no killing, but a tragic shipwreck and a sailor's wife who vows never to remarry ), I think I'll try this (I know I should update my other work, but I'm a sucker for a good Celtic ballad ).

OK, the first one I got was 6. Anyone care if I run with that, or is it already reserved?

 

6 seems to be available.

The link to @AzureAngel2's fic doesn't seem to be working? Keeps taking me to an error page.

 

Onderon1: Well, since I finally got around to listening to a Steeleye Span song last night (Flowers of Holland - no killing, but a tragic shipwreck and a sailor's wife who vows never to remarry ), I think I'll try this (I know I should update my other work, but I'm a sucker for a good Celtic ballad ).

I do know that feeling. (And of course, the wife could never, ever remarry--that would violate the principles of True Love.)

And No. 6 is yours to run with. You have received "The Banks of Claudy:" this one has a plot worthy of an early Shakespeare comedy, and there's a surprise (although if you're well-versed in the ways o' the ballads, and Charles Dickens, probably not that much of one) at the end.

A version of the lyrics

Videos:

Spoiler

Mary Dillon:


Michael Hanly and Mícheál Ó Donnell:


Loreena McKennitt:

 

Pandora - Thanks. I'll work on that, and see what I come up with ...

 

Onderon1: Pandora - Thanks. I'll work on that, and see what I come up with ...

You are welcome. And thank you for that mention of the Steeleye Span song--I wasn't previously familiar with this one, and I have already looked it up (though I found it under the title of "The Lowlands of Holland") on youtube for a listen.