sovay: (Default)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2005-12-09 12:54 pm

What was golden went grey and I'm suddenly shy

Those of you who do not know that [livejournal.com profile] erzebet's Cabinet des Fées, a 'zine of fairytale, folktale, and generally dark and elegant storytelling, will henceforth be published as a print digest under the auspices of Prime Books—well, now you know. Submissions accepted from now until the last day of the year. I have myself sold them two pieces of flash fiction, "The Fool's Doorway" and "Katabasis" (for [livejournal.com profile] lesser_celery), and I look forward to seeing you in the TOC.

To change the subject as abruptly as an implausible one-eighty in a very bad racing film— Does anyone have a version of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Lyke Wake Dirge" from Fire and Fleet and Candlelight? I have this album at home on vinyl, but that does me no good here, where snow, sleet, freezing rain, and ordinary (if cold) rain have been falling in changes all day. As I recall, her version uses a cello, the dry rattle of sistra, and the same melody as Benjamin Britten's setting; and I heard it very young, and it haunts me.*

To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last, and Christ receive thy soul . . .

*I have already got the Young Tradition's "Lyke-Wake Dirge," Pentangle's "Lyke-Wake Dirge," the Mediaeval Baebes' "This Ay Nicht," and the aforementioned Britten, in "Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings" (Op. 31, 1943). If anyone knows of other variants, do please inform me. I must also thank this page: no version I've heard tells happens to a soul at Brig o' Dread, although I wasn't particularly surprised. Silver and gold versus hellfire: same options, different largesse. Be nice, or zap.

[identity profile] strange-selkie.livejournal.com 2005-12-09 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Did you lose the copy from me? It would be dated 2001 if you had it...

[identity profile] ombriel.livejournal.com 2005-12-09 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Wondering about Cabinet des Fees--their guidelines say they want 2k-5k, but they bought flash fiction (congrats!). Any idea what's up with that, by chance?

[identity profile] ombriel.livejournal.com 2005-12-09 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I've been getting into flash of late. More accurately, it's been imposing itself upon me. I'll query.
:)

[identity profile] schreibergasse.livejournal.com 2005-12-10 11:48 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I think the ones I´ve seen in various literature collections leave out what happens at the Brig of Drede too. Interesting.
And now I have the Revels version of the Apple Tree Wassail stuck in my head, adding to the theme of "music from the wrong time of the year" started by !"§$%& "Floret silva nobilis"

[identity profile] thomasfreund.livejournal.com 2005-12-10 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Interestingly, Neil Mackie, who is probably the British tenor best suited to Britten's work after Pears' death, once asked Pears about the words to the Dirge. He had seen other editions of the text say "Fire and sleet and candlelight" rather than "Fire and fleet" (a problem not uncommon given the way the s character was often printed).

Pears' reply? "Well, my dear, why don't you sing 'sleet' when you come to record it!" Mackie did, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Barry Tuckwell (who had played the horn part under Britten). The conductor was Steuart Bedford, who is conducting the performances of Thaïs this spring at Boston Lyric.

Sonya to Britten to Mackie to Pears to Bedford to me. Six degrees of Taaffe?

[identity profile] nineweaving.livejournal.com 2005-12-10 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Interval for pedantry:

"Fire and flet" is the usual Northern phrase for "fire and house-room": much used in wills and other legal documents, so it would be quite natural to use it in a conjuration.

OED:

3. fire and flet (corruptly fleet): 'fire and house-room'; an
expression often occurring in wills, etc.


Bp. Kennett (a 1728) quotes in MS. Lansd. 1033 fol. 132 an 'old
northern song over a dead corps', containing the lines 'Fire and
fleet and candle light, And Xt receive thy sawle'. In Sir W. Scott's
Minstrelsy of Scot. Border (1802) 232 the words appear as 'Fire and
sleet', and the editor suggests that sleet 'seems to be corrupted
from selt, or salt, a quantity of which is frequently placed on the breast
of a corpse'!

1533 Trubb in Weaver Wells Wills (1890) 129 To fynd the said wife...mete
and drink, fyer and fleit.

1539 Will of R. Morleyn (Somerset Ho.) My wife to have...fyre & fleete in
my haule & kechin.

c1570 Durham Depos. (Surtees) 207, I trobled...this house with a
bedd roome and fier and fleit.

See also the Dictionary of the Scots Language.

Nine

[identity profile] nineweaving.livejournal.com 2005-12-10 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
no version I've heard tells happens to a soul at Brig o' Dread

There's a good Brig o' Dread in Deep Secret.

Nine

[identity profile] nineweaving.livejournal.com 2005-12-10 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I wish I had.

Nine

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2005-12-12 02:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I once heard the Early Music Consort play it - as an encore, I think. But I don't think they ever recorded it. In any case, David Munrow explained that they'd learned it (as I had) from Pentangle, so it wouldn't be an additional version for you.