Of course, one problem (as an American) with traditional English songs

[conuly]

Or simply very OLD English songs, is that they often refer to a small number of birds with various symbolic meanings. Cuckoos herald warm weather (and also unfaithfulness), larks have to do with the morning, turtledoves are about... love? (you can't convince me that's not because the words rhyme nicely), nightingales sing nicely, and there's always magpie poems.

Yeah, none of these exist where I live. We have mockingbirds and American robins (not like English robins at all) and blue jays and cardinals and the hermit thrush, but those don't make much of an appearance. Mourning doves do, but probably because it exactly matches the scansion of "turtledove".

And you know, awkward as I might find it to try to sing a piece in Middle English, it's even weirder when you think that cuckoos don't come here in the warm months and never will. I'm not likely to see one in my lifetime, nor hear one. (Well, I mean, there are cuckoos in the sense of "birds of the cuckoo family" in America, but not the one people think of when they think of cuckoos, the one that makes the classic call. The only one that springs instantly to mind is the roadrunner, so... yeah.)

There's not much to be done about this. Trying to change the references to local birds (or plants, when that occurs and they haven't been introduced to the Americas) would be pointless and almost certainly wouldn't rhyme or scan or have the same "meaning" even if it ought to. But it just... nags at me. I mean, the whole refrain is a lie to me! "Loudly sing, cuckoo?" Not likely! Sure, the meadow is blooming and all that, and I'm sure the sheep and cows are acting like sheep and cows, introduced species that they are, that the deer are the same the world over - but there's that cuckoo again! Poor thing must be lost.

*sighs*

Do you ever think you overthink things?

Comments

[steorra]

Do you ever think you overthink things?
Other people tell me I do more often than I think I do, although I've probably thought so on occasion.

[conuly]

You're overthinking this answer, that's for sure :)

[steorra]

Hehehe.
As I said... other people tell me so :P

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I was listening to a real genuine cuckoo while playing with that translation, and I heard the first one this year at round about the first of May (the day when that song is traditionally sung).

I see your problem, but I think it's another of those where over-modernising would lose the point. After all, it's your history too. Go back to the time the cuckoo was being exhorted to sing, where were your ancestors living? I bet they could hear cuckoos.

Would it be any help to know that I've never seen or heard a turtledove, and probably never will? It's practically extinct. The problems of symbols no longer being current aren't created purely by geography.

So what traditional symbolic birds and so on does America have? Which migrant's arrival signals the start of summer?

[conuly]

Would it be any help to know that I've never seen or heard a turtledove, and probably never will? It's practically extinct.

It's not practically extinct except maybe in your area, it's listed as "least concern".

The problems of symbols no longer being current aren't created purely by geography.

I see the point. Who today knows that millers are supposed to be terribly greedy? (Then again, they only appear in lines dedicated to saying just that, so if you don't know it you figure it out fast.)

Go back to the time the cuckoo was being exhorted to sing, where were your ancestors living? I bet they could hear cuckoos.

Fair enough :)

So what traditional symbolic birds and so on does America have? Which migrant's arrival signals the start of summer?


The red, red, robin which comes bob, bob, bobbin' along, I suppose. That, of course, is the American robin, as noted. Yours is associated with Christmas and overwinters, doesn't it?

But to be honest, here in NYC it's not birdsong I associate with springtime. It's raccoon-song, specifically that awful screech they make. It's not as pretty as birdsong, but it's sure consistent. Starts up every February, regular as clockwork.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Well, the RSPB seem to think the turtledove is in serious danger of extinction.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/313482-operation-turtle-dove-saving-a-bird-on-the-brink
Maybe they're wrong.
I'm sure you get the point, though - common then, rare now.

It's odd about the robin symbolising winter - sure, it's around in winter, but that's because it's around all year. I've got no idea why it should be associated with winter.

I did know about greedy millers, in fact, but that's due to reading too much history for my own good.

Racoons, is it?
Summer is a-coming in
Loudly screech, Racoon!
Grows the seed and blooms the mead
and springs the wood soon
Screech, Racoon!
Ewe bleateth after lamb,
Cow for calf doth moon
Bullock starteth, buck marketh,
Merry screech Racoon!
'Coon, 'coon, 'coon, 'coon, well you screech, racoon
Nor cease you ever now!

Screech Racoon now. Screech, Racoon.
Screech Racoon. Screech Racoon now!


I may have lost the original meaning a little in the attempt to get it to rhyme - sorry. The repeated abbreviation in the middle is to get the stress in the right place. One has to take these things seriously, after all :)

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Having posted a reply to that, complete with new "translation", I am told that it has been marked as spam????

[conuly]

And I'm not seeing it here to approve either. Did it contain a link?

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Yes, it did - does. I can see it. I'd put a link to an RSPB campaign to save the turtledove at the start. Let's see if it works without that.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Well, the RSPB seem to think the turtledove is in serious danger of extinction.
(link removed) Maybe they're wrong.
I'm sure you get the point, though - common then, rare now.

It's odd about the robin symbolising winter - sure, it's around in winter, but that's because it's around all year. I've got no idea why it should be associated with winter.

I did know about greedy millers, in fact, but that's due to reading too much history for my own good.

Racoons, is it?

Summer is a-coming in
Loudly screech, Racoon!
Grows the seed and blooms the mead
and springs the wood soon
Screech, Racoon!
Ewe bleateth after lamb,
Cow for calf doth moon
Bullock starteth, buck marketh,
Merry screech Racoon!
'Coon, 'coon, 'coon, 'coon, well you screech, racoon
Nor cease you ever now!

Screech Racoon now. Screech, Racoon.
Screech Racoon. Screech Racoon now!


I may have lost the original meaning a little in the attempt to get it to rhyme - sorry. The repeated abbreviation in the middle is to get the stress in the right place. One has to take these things seriously, after all :)

[conuly]

:)

If only raccoon screeching was something I wanted to immortalize in song!(And coon wasn't also a derogatory term for black people, but in context I think most people would realize it's not meant that way.)

[conuly]

Somehow skipped this the first time around:

It's odd about the robin symbolising winter - sure, it's around in winter, but that's because it's around all year. I've got no idea why it should be associated with winter.

Their year-roundness is probably why, for the same reason that evergreens are thought of as winter plants. They also exist year-round, but we only really notice them when all the other trees have dropped their leaves. If all the other birds have left the area, the robin stands out... but your robins aren't that big or bright, are they? So they don't stand out that much EXCEPT when nothing else is there to compare to.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Probably the same way cardinals are associated with winter in the Northeast, even though they're around all year: that bright red shows up so beautifully against the snowy bird feeder.

That may be the reason - don't English robins frequent bird-feeders in winter too, and get tame and friendly with the people who feed them? A cute little red bird that chirps for suet outside the snowy window every morning would certainly stand out in one's mind.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

They frequent bird feeders all year round, yes. As do various tits and finches and thrushes. Most of the bird-feeder birds are here all year round.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Yay, I love this! And I particularly like "buck marketh", because that's exactly what he's doing.

"Nor cease you ever now" is about right. Not only do they screech like frickin' banshees when they're 'gathering nuts' - the young ones, once they're out of the den, also chitter and screech incessantly. We actually named two of them that: Chitter and Screech, children of Robin Wood the Robber.... heh, the Raccoon Wars we've been through would make an epic poem as long as Beowulf..

[conuly]

It's one of the few things I dislike about them. They're clever animals and amazingly fun to watch (so long as you're not dumb enough to put out food a. on a regular basis b. in a consistent location c. when they can see you do it or d. anywhere close to the house), but BOY are they noisy! And at night, of course.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Robin Wood tore the screen right out of my back door to come in and scarf down all the catfood. She also tried to tear her way into my roof to nest in the attic. She was very large, and would rear up on her back feet and come at you if challenged, and was not much deterred by a hail of small stones, either

She WAS deterred by getting sprayed in the face with a hose, and I got her good in the butt once with a garden-fork (didn't hurt her, but made the point.) but she never stopped coming around. I trapped her once, was going to relocate her, but then tiny adorable little Chitter and Screech tottered out of the forest: "Mama's in a cage!" - so I scolded her sternly, she hissed and growled at me, and I let the bitch go.

They are clever animals indeed, strong, aggressive and persistent. Basically they're like small bears, very cute, but bitey and destructive. I can definitely do without them.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

It's the Northern mockingbird we can all hear outside, relentlessly singing every morning and night in May and June. Their calls are too varied to describe with a word, though.

The redwing blackbirds are everywhere, and as soon as the ice is off the marshes, they're singing Cuclaree from every stand of cat-tails. They're earliest Spring, though, not Summer so much.

Male goldfinches turn bright as laburnum blossoms at this time of year, and they loudly sing Tee-Yee to their lady-friends. I suppose one could poetically alter that to Tee Hee, which would be somewhat in keeping with the spirit of the song.

I'm pretty sure most Americans would not grok the connection between loudly singing Cuckoo and, umm, "going a-Maying" - not just because we don't have many cuckoos on this continent, nor because most Americans know little about the habits of birds, but also because most American schoolchildren were brought up to think that going a-Maying just meant going out to pick flowers.

[conuly]

All the more reasons to teach them folksongs. As I've heard said, if you look at the calendar and discover it's May, best bet is to just stay home! Unless, of course, you have an urgent need to... um... "gather nuts".

As far as the other part of that sentence, it has long struck me as unreasonably perverse that children from a young age are diligently taught the names and, in many cases sounds of animals that to them only exist in zoos - elephants and giraffes and penguins and the like - but are allowed to remain totally ignorant of plants and animals that can be found in their own backyards. If one more person tells me that the nieces can't eat something perfectly edible just because they picked it themselves* I just might scream!

* They've recently decided wood sorrel is the best thing ever. Nobody else seems to recognize that one can eat it.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

OMG, wood sorrel; I used to eat that by the handful in first and second grade, when I walked to school past an orchard full of it. We called it sourgrass, and yes, I do remember some idiotic adult telling me it was poisonous. A lot of adults seem to have the notion that children must be frightened out of eating anything wild, lest they eat the wrong thing. Back East, I stood under a tree of ripe mulberries once, stuffing my face with purple fingers, while this woman walking past me told her little boy they were poison. I was astonished, and being young and tactless, told her flat-out, "If they were, I'd have been dead years ago."

Heh, the children I look after learn the local flora and fauna, and we eat everything that's good to eat, from chickweed to chanterelles - though admittedly, the chanterelles have to be brought home, keyed out and cooked; they're not a forest snack. In kindergarten, one of the kids taught my daughter how to eat a nettle leaf raw, and she's been winning bets with that one ever since, but we also gather nettles to make nettle fettucine every Spring, and also just cook them like spinach. Wild food is free food, but if idiots want to think it's not edible, whatever: all the more for me!

[conuly]

Apparently sorrel has high levels of oxalic acid and CAN harm you if you eat enough of it. "Enough of it" would have to be a great amount, though.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Most British children also think "going a-Maying" means gathering flowers, I'm afraid. We learn folk songs a long time before being taught what the birds and the bees are up to. What's rather sad, though, is not seeing the problem of gathering nuts in May - if nuts are seen as seasonal at all, it's because they appear in the supermarket near Xmas :(

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

And probably, just like here, they don't teach the naughtier songs or verses in school:

"Take no scorn nto wear the horn,
It was a crest ere you were born,
Yer father's father wore 'em
And your father wore 'em too!
Hal an tow, jolly rumble-o,
We've been up long before the day-o
To welcome in the summer,
To welcome in the May-o,
For summer is a comin' in
And winter's gone away, o!"

"Oh do not tell the Priest our rite,
For he would call it sin,
But we've been out in the wood all night
A-conjurin' Summer in,
And bring you good news by word of mouth
For women, cattle and corn,
For the Sun is comin' up from the South
By Oak and Ash and Thorn."

... y'know what, though, Pagan country children grow up with the songs AND the traditions, and it's no secret what it's all about - also, the birds and the bees can't hold a candle to what the sheep get up to in plain sight, not to mention that hideous screeching outside in the dark that heralds a new generation of raccoons - but they don't pay any attention either. I'll bet most of them have never even thought about what kind of nuts one gathers in May, or think the "nuts" are the crazy grownups dancing around out there.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

LOL, no, it's usually other people who think I overthink things. To which, "Phooey", sez me. Or words to that effect.

Okay, so about the cuckoo: we don't have them here either; the one kind we used to have (http://gallery.usgs.gov/photos/05_19_2011_mQHt38Vjj1_05_19_2011_5) has disappeared from the area.

What we do have here is the redwing blackbird, which lives just about everywhere in the US, is pretty and striking, and loudly sings Cuclaree at the first breath of Spring. "Cuclaree, sing Cuclaree' would work just as well as 'Cuccu'.

[conuly]

Yes, but then it wouldn't rhyme as well with "springs the wood anew" (or however it's spelled).

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

The rhyming could probably be sorted, but "Cuclaree" looks like it has three syllables rather than two?

[conuly]

Well, that can be gotten around pretty easily as well if you're willing to play a little bit with the meter.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

The meter's none too tight to begin with, and if you're intending to sing it, it won't matter at all - just pretend the extra syllable is a grace-note.

Admittedly, the cry of the red-wing blackbird is sort of opposite to the intent behind singing Cuccu in the song, because what they mean when they sing it is "Posted: No Trespassing! Stay Away From My Wife!"

Y'know, the common rock pigeon, AKA city pigeon, also sings Cuccu, though often with more than two syllables, and they're sexy enough for anybody's going-a-Maying song.