H04065 TROUBLE WITH FAIRIES - 10/18/04 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES
From: ? segr@segr-music.net
Subject: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 5:01:42 AM PDT
After having been lured to the woodland forgive me for a little further
"raking up"
(following Rosemarie's moving example tho' not so sensationally- she sounded
as if she was in the same room!) I would refer you all to "that night, that
song"
way back in March 1870.
Which song?
It is clear that Hardy was captivated by the singing at St Juliot Rectory.
Some of the
performances are elsewhere on the website below but a magical session is at:
http://www.segr-music.net/songdetails.cfm?song_id=370
I think the TWO girls must have got to him and lured him to the dells.
What did he see there? For instance, are all fairies definitively female,
in which case are the elves masculine or neuter. If the latter why try to
lure them with "Come away"? Perhaps they merely lurk behind the trees,
unseen (like many Forum and POTM visitors). In which case the song
might better have said "Go away"!
A close look at the picture leaves (more raking up) one rather puzzled as to
whether elves have wings but flat chests and pointed ears. The fairy queen
is clearly a lady and the redhead is scrumptious but what are they up to
at the back?...............
Do I hear Betty saying "Use yr imagination, Roy"?
(If so I will reply privately, Betty) (Lure, lure)
Over to you, folks.
Roy Buckle.
www.segr-music.net
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From: patrick@prassociates.co.uk
Subject: RE: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 6:13:52 AM PDT
Roy Buckle asked:
What did he see there? For instance, are all fairies
definitively female,
No. There is, for example, a traditional tune (usually played as a
hornpipe, I think) called 'King of the Fairies' which, to my ear, has a
curiously haunting quality.
See:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/RRTuneBk/gettune/00000827.html
Maybe TH knew it?
Patrick Roper
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From: ann.whitlock282@btinternet.com
Subject: Re: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 9:34:06 AM PDT
You only have to read Shakespeare (and not just A Midsummer Night's Dream) to find an detailed indication of the huge variety and kinds of power of the dwellers in the 'fairy kingdom', both male and female.
Judging from some of his oblique references in more than one novel, Hardy was well acquainted with both the literary and the vernacular history of fairies.
Ann Whitlock
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From: segr@segr-music.net
Subject: RE: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 9:54:23 AM PDT
Yes, Ann but as I already said to Betty, Shakespeare made it all up.
If Hardy believed in fairies he didn't show it(letters)
while Conan Doyle was enthusing about the Cottingham fairies.
I don't think TH ever referred to that episode, did he?
Roy.
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From: segr@segr-music.net
Subject: RE: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 7:55:00 AM PDT
Thanks Patrick.
To my ear there's an F# missing in the key signature:
the tune is in Eminor I suspect.
Maybe fairies breed like bees.
The Queen is the one who is endowed with the
necessary functionality.
Pardon the Star Trek lingo.
Roy
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From: patrick@prassociates.co.uk
Subject: RE: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 11:01:46 AM PDT
Yes, Ann but as I already said to Betty, Shakespeare made it all up.
If Hardy believed in fairies he didn't show it(letters)
while Conan Doyle was enthusing about the Cottingham fairies.
TH may not have believed in fairies but, at the time he first visited St
Juliot there is plenty of evidence to show that many Cornish people still
did and, I suspect, those living at the rectory and their friends knew all
about this.
Mrs Hemans's poem does seem to be in the Conan Doyle Victorian fairy mode,
but I suspect the people at St Juliot and, no doubt, Hardy too were aware of
books like Robert Hunt's 'Popular Romances of the West of England: Or the
Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall' (1865) which is
rather less sentimental.
Some of the 'fairy stories' from this have been republished with other
material in 'Cornish Fairy Folk' by Kelvin I. Jones (1996) and illustrate
the very complex world of the Cornish piskie (both sexes).
The Cornish fairy land seems to have been rather more malign that the
gossamer wings stuff east of the Tamar but, as others have noted, there were
clearly threads of fairy lore still alive and well in Dorset in Hardy's
lifetime and some of these, as well as Cornish material, certainly seem to
feature in his writing.
I often think that people who were well-versed in the pre-Christian classics
had a particular interest in and often an empathy with the variety of
supernatural beings that once peopled (and maybe sometimes are still thought
to) the British Isles.
I often wonder if TH was familiar with that extraordinary fairy poem by
Thomas of Erceldoune, Thomas the Rhymer, maybe through his friend Sir George
Douglas who lived in that part of Scotland where it originated. It would,
after all, not be surprising if a poet who had Thomas as a first name was
intrigued by someone called 'Thomas the Rhymer'.
The poem is here for those who don't know it:
http://search.able2know.com/About/5673.html
Its attribution to 'Anonymous' is, I am sure, incorrect btw.
Patrick Roper
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From: segr@segr-music.net
Subject: RE: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 2:42:48 PM PDT
I shouldn't wonder if Hardy, like me, would have read it once
but never again!
RB.
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From: ann.whitlock282@btinternet.com
Subject: Re: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 18, 2004 3:34:51 PM PDT
I don't think that I said that Hardy believed in fairies. However there are
several references in his novels which indicate his technical knowledge.
In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, for example, he refers to the 'green spangled
fairies which whickered at you as they passed.' (chapter L)
The words ' green spangled' are interesting in their specific detail as
fairies were known for certain qualities connected with their colour. The
word 'whickered' in this context is also one closely associated with ancient
witchcraft and fairy lore
His regret at the passing of local knowledge of fairy lore was touched on in
a letter to Rider Haggard in 1902.
There was an increased interest in English and Celtic fairy tales in late
Victorian England, notably in the work of the folk lorist Joseph Jacobs -
some of which work was inspired by the writings of Matthew Arnold on Celtic
literature.
Barnes, too was well read in Celtic literature and local folk lore;one may
surmise that the topic may have cropped up in the many conversations over
the years with Hardy.
Ann Whitlock
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From: ericjchristen@bluewin.ch
Subject: Fairies
Date: October 20, 2004 2:07:51 AM PDT
From _SHELLEY'S SKYLARK_, stanza five:
"Go find it, faeries, go and find / That tiny pinch of priceless dust",
etc.
I have sometimes wondered if this could be an allusion to, or an echo from,
a well-known poem (by Shelley or another poet), or a passage in Shakespeare
(apart from A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM). I would be very grateful for any
information or suggestion.
Thank you for any help. Eric Christen
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From: patrick@prassociates.co.uk
Subject: RE: Trouble With Fairies!
Date: October 20, 2004 6:27:50 AM PDT
Ann Whitlock said:
There was an increased interest in English and Celtic fairy tales in late
Victorian England, notably in the work of the folk lorist Joseph Jacobs -
some of which work was inspired by the writings of Matthew Arnold
on Celtic
literature.
Barnes, too was well read in Celtic literature and local folk lore;one may
surmise that the topic may have cropped up in the many conversations over
the years with Hardy.
There was also Sir George Douglas, who I mentioned in my previous post, who
was a lifelong friend of TH from their Wimborne Minster days. Douglas was
editor of 'Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales' (1895).
Thanks to Roy Buckle too for pointing out that the King of the Fairies is in
E minor. I played it without even looking at the key signature, and my
brain simply put it in E minor uninvited. One can tell I am not a trained
musician!
Patrick Roper
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From: segr@segr-music.net
Subject: RE: Fairies (More Trouble With Fairies)
Date: October 20, 2004 8:01:06 AM PDT
Eric, while remaining bemused by the fairy thing
I have thought about your problem with dust.
Pre-Shelley references I've not spotted but "Peter Pan"
(J M Barrie) has it that the dust enables humans to fly!
The chapter (III) is entitled "Come Away, Come Away"
strangely which confuses me all the more since that is the
"Elfin Call"!
Barrie cannot be the real source of these words and ideas
so we search on...........
Roy Buckle.
Thank you for any help. Eric Christen
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From: ann.whitlock282@btinternet.com
Subject: Re: Fairies
Date: October 20, 2004 10:01:33 AM PDT
Eric, I don't have any information as such but your question has haunted me (!) all day. The theme of mortal dust becoming the seed bed of a new plant, and the energy of the dead being revitalised in the living is an idea explored elsewhere in Hardy's poetry, and obliquely in some of the novels. It is a cultural idea associated with Celtic mythology.
There is a melancholy grace in the lines quoted which is both poetic in the fanciful sense, and which drifts into echoes of something deeper. The words made me think again of the dust of death in 'Fear no more the heat of the sun' in Cymbeline - a play full of ancient symbolism.
Of course the fairy reference in that particular context is a threatening one.
I should be interested to know of any reference in any published work to the folklore or fairy tradition in Hardy's novels or poetry.
One book which is useful in identifying both the genealogy of fairies, and the exploration of their role in English literature, is The fairies in English Tradition and Literature, by Katherine Briggs. She gained her D.Phil. at Lady Margaret Hall with a thesis on folklore in 17th century literature. She was born in 1898 and died in 1980.
Ann Whitlock
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From: segr@segr-music.net
Subject: RE: Fairies
Date: October 20, 2004 12:23:17 PM PDT
In reply to Ann:
"There is a large amount of ghost and fairy lore in
the works of Thomas Hardy".
So begins Ruth Firor in Chapter 3 of her book
"Folkways in Thomas Hardy"
New York: A.S.Barnes&Co.
Perpetua Edition
1962.
Roy B.
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