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Got some good work done at official work this week.
Spent a really nice afternoon on Wednesday taking notes from Child's British and Scottish Popular Ballads.
Stuff like "ex girlfriend cut off his head? and then he had to carry it around till he could re attach it - could see where that might make him bitter."
Which is drawing off one of the first ballads in there, about Ms. Isabel and the False Knight whom she dispatches (and of course had to squelch the side of my brain that immediately thought Isabel met an enormous bear / Isabel, Isabel, didn't care - because Ogden Nash and gloomy ballads are actually quite hilariously close to each other in plot and repetition, separated only by tone).
In the ballad, the unfortunately headless gentleman dies, rather than getting to reattach his head. What good is having a talking head that could be reattached after death with some green or red goo if the girl just leaves you there, hunh? Given that he had a Bluebeard-beating streak of dead ex-girlfriends, we're not meant to feel too bad for him.
Then I took notes about one ballad that went something like: "ongoing difficult relationship with hounds, hawks, horses, as those darned animals failed to wake him so he could sleep with the hot chick and then he lost the bet."
I have this idea in my head about the elfin knight, you see. Especially after reading those versions of Parsley Sage Rosemary Thyme where the ridiculously underage chick tries to assure the elfin knight that she is too old enough for that.
I continue to believe that traditional ballads = = day time talk shows in tone, repetition, content. If people on talk shows rhymed, the comparison would be complete.
Also I got a pile of history books that makes my usual pile of history books look short. I plan to ignore them tonight and read the Jennifer Morgue. Tomorrow I can go back to the Bloodless Revolution, After Tamerlane, etc.
Spent a really nice afternoon on Wednesday taking notes from Child's British and Scottish Popular Ballads.
Stuff like "ex girlfriend cut off his head? and then he had to carry it around till he could re attach it - could see where that might make him bitter."
Which is drawing off one of the first ballads in there, about Ms. Isabel and the False Knight whom she dispatches (and of course had to squelch the side of my brain that immediately thought Isabel met an enormous bear / Isabel, Isabel, didn't care - because Ogden Nash and gloomy ballads are actually quite hilariously close to each other in plot and repetition, separated only by tone).
In the ballad, the unfortunately headless gentleman dies, rather than getting to reattach his head. What good is having a talking head that could be reattached after death with some green or red goo if the girl just leaves you there, hunh? Given that he had a Bluebeard-beating streak of dead ex-girlfriends, we're not meant to feel too bad for him.
Then I took notes about one ballad that went something like: "ongoing difficult relationship with hounds, hawks, horses, as those darned animals failed to wake him so he could sleep with the hot chick and then he lost the bet."
I have this idea in my head about the elfin knight, you see. Especially after reading those versions of Parsley Sage Rosemary Thyme where the ridiculously underage chick tries to assure the elfin knight that she is too old enough for that.
I continue to believe that traditional ballads = = day time talk shows in tone, repetition, content. If people on talk shows rhymed, the comparison would be complete.
Also I got a pile of history books that makes my usual pile of history books look short. I plan to ignore them tonight and read the Jennifer Morgue. Tomorrow I can go back to the Bloodless Revolution, After Tamerlane, etc.
