The Flowers in the Valley
The other morning, with a song in my head, I asked Mama Dog: “If you lived in medieval times, in a valley with your mother, and one day knights started showing up, competing for your attention, which of the following propositions do you think you’d find more enticing? Proposition number one: ‘Wilt thou be my bride, wilt thou be my queen?’ Proposition number two: ‘Wilt thou be my love and my fair one?’” Mama Dog, under the misapprehension that this some personality test riddle I got off the Internet, thought it through and decided that, given the parameters of the question, specifically the stipulation that she would be living in medieval times, she would find proposition number one more enticing. She reckoned it sounded like an invitation to marriage and respectability, while proposition number two sounded more like an invitation to concubinage and hoochie coochery.
It wasn’t an Internet quiz, though. It was the song in my head, which was The Flowers in the Valley, an old song of indeterminately British (though I’d guess English, from the sound of it) origin that the Clancy Brothers sang and even used as the name of an album. In the song, the maiden in the valley rejects proposition number one and accepts proposition number two. I’ve wondered from time to time what informed her decision. The song tells almost nothing about the knights, who are distinguishable only by the colours they wear (which is actually probably important, more on which in a moment), so we’re left to conclude that the maiden’s choice is made by the specific words they use to woo her. My theory: the first proposition, while cloaked in respectability, is really an appeal to her superficial material desires. This knight – the green knight – seems to be in the market for a bride, and pretty much any will do. The second knight – the yellow knight – seems to have his sights set more specifically on her. He’s not looking for an interchangeable unit to fill some societally determined role (i.e., bride, queen), but for love. He also tells her she’s hot, which never hurts.
Here are the full lyrics to the song, as I transcribed them this morning. I’d link you to one of those newfangled MP3s about which all the kids are so crazy, but I can barely find a trace of this version of the song on the Internet. If you want, come over to my house and I’ll play it for you. I have it on a phonograph record.
There was a woman
Ah, but she was a widow
Fair as the flowers in the valley
With a daughter as fair
As a fresh sunny meadow
The red and the green and the yellow
No harp, no lute, no pipe, no flute, nor cymbal
As sweet goes the treble violin
This maiden so fair and the flowers so rare
Together they grew in the valley
Then came a knight all dressed in green
Fair as the flowers in the valley
“Wilt thou be my bride, wilt thou be my queen?”
The red and the green and the yellow
No harp, no lute, no pipe, no flute, nor cymbal
As sweet goes the treble violin
“Ah no,” said she, “you’ll never win me.”
Fair as the flowers in the valley
Then came a knight dressed in yellow
Fair as the flowers in the valley
“Wilt thou be my love, and my fair one?” said he
The red and the green and the yellow
No harp, no lute, no pipe, no flute, nor cymbal
As sweet goes the treble violin
“Ah yes,” said she, “I’ll come with thee.”
Farewell to the flowers in the valley
“Ah yes,” said she, “I’ll come with thee.”
Farewell to the flowers in the valley
As I said, the colours are probably important in understanding the decision that the maiden makes here, and one thing you’ll notice is that there seems to be a knight missing. We have a recurrent refrain about “the red and the green and the yellow” – this refers to the colours of the flowers, but logic dictates it also refers to the colours of the knights, of whom we meet only green and yellow. My guess is that the song did contain a “red knight” verse, but the Clancys deleted it to make the text a little less repetitious. Another version I found on the Internet supports this hypothesis, but alters the terms of the argument. In this version, the maiden seems to be looking for the knight who expresses himself in the most forceful terms, rejecting “I would” and “might be” in favour of “thou must.” (Also, no “love” or “fair one”; the first night says “bride,” the second says “queen,” and the third steals their thunder by saying both.)
Anyway, I’m assuming that the colours here are important the same way they are in Gawain and the Green Knight and other such brightly-hued knightly tales. I had a quick rummage through sites dealing with traditional symbolic meanings of colours, and here’s what I found. Red is as “associated with the sun and all gods of war, anger, blood-lust, vengeance, fire, and the masculine” – that sounds like a guy who’d be picking out a bride like an impulse item at the checkout line, doesn’t it? "Hmm. Guess I'll get a bride. And maybe a copy of The Star." Moving on... “Green is a dualistic colour. It can represent envy, evil, and trickery, and/or growth, renewal, and life, as lush vegetation. In Arthurian legend the green knight slew all who attempted to cross his bridge, until he was killed by Arthur. In this respect green can be seen as death's unbiased nature and the slaying of the naive.” That last bit sounds most relevant, doesn’t it? And lastly – “Yellow often stands for light, the sun’s rays, intellect, faith, and/or goodness.” So with this as a rough guide, it seems that our maiden wisely rejects both war and death in favour of faith and goodness.
But you know, what the hell do I know? In the words of Paul Hackett, “What do you want from me?! I’m just a word processor!” Any folklorists out there? I sure would like to get this sorted out.
It wasn’t an Internet quiz, though. It was the song in my head, which was The Flowers in the Valley, an old song of indeterminately British (though I’d guess English, from the sound of it) origin that the Clancy Brothers sang and even used as the name of an album. In the song, the maiden in the valley rejects proposition number one and accepts proposition number two. I’ve wondered from time to time what informed her decision. The song tells almost nothing about the knights, who are distinguishable only by the colours they wear (which is actually probably important, more on which in a moment), so we’re left to conclude that the maiden’s choice is made by the specific words they use to woo her. My theory: the first proposition, while cloaked in respectability, is really an appeal to her superficial material desires. This knight – the green knight – seems to be in the market for a bride, and pretty much any will do. The second knight – the yellow knight – seems to have his sights set more specifically on her. He’s not looking for an interchangeable unit to fill some societally determined role (i.e., bride, queen), but for love. He also tells her she’s hot, which never hurts.
Here are the full lyrics to the song, as I transcribed them this morning. I’d link you to one of those newfangled MP3s about which all the kids are so crazy, but I can barely find a trace of this version of the song on the Internet. If you want, come over to my house and I’ll play it for you. I have it on a phonograph record.
There was a woman
Ah, but she was a widow
Fair as the flowers in the valley
With a daughter as fair
As a fresh sunny meadow
The red and the green and the yellow
No harp, no lute, no pipe, no flute, nor cymbal
As sweet goes the treble violin
This maiden so fair and the flowers so rare
Together they grew in the valley
Then came a knight all dressed in green
Fair as the flowers in the valley
“Wilt thou be my bride, wilt thou be my queen?”
The red and the green and the yellow
No harp, no lute, no pipe, no flute, nor cymbal
As sweet goes the treble violin
“Ah no,” said she, “you’ll never win me.”
Fair as the flowers in the valley
Then came a knight dressed in yellow
Fair as the flowers in the valley
“Wilt thou be my love, and my fair one?” said he
The red and the green and the yellow
No harp, no lute, no pipe, no flute, nor cymbal
As sweet goes the treble violin
“Ah yes,” said she, “I’ll come with thee.”
Farewell to the flowers in the valley
“Ah yes,” said she, “I’ll come with thee.”
Farewell to the flowers in the valley
As I said, the colours are probably important in understanding the decision that the maiden makes here, and one thing you’ll notice is that there seems to be a knight missing. We have a recurrent refrain about “the red and the green and the yellow” – this refers to the colours of the flowers, but logic dictates it also refers to the colours of the knights, of whom we meet only green and yellow. My guess is that the song did contain a “red knight” verse, but the Clancys deleted it to make the text a little less repetitious. Another version I found on the Internet supports this hypothesis, but alters the terms of the argument. In this version, the maiden seems to be looking for the knight who expresses himself in the most forceful terms, rejecting “I would” and “might be” in favour of “thou must.” (Also, no “love” or “fair one”; the first night says “bride,” the second says “queen,” and the third steals their thunder by saying both.)
Anyway, I’m assuming that the colours here are important the same way they are in Gawain and the Green Knight and other such brightly-hued knightly tales. I had a quick rummage through sites dealing with traditional symbolic meanings of colours, and here’s what I found. Red is as “associated with the sun and all gods of war, anger, blood-lust, vengeance, fire, and the masculine” – that sounds like a guy who’d be picking out a bride like an impulse item at the checkout line, doesn’t it? "Hmm. Guess I'll get a bride. And maybe a copy of The Star." Moving on... “Green is a dualistic colour. It can represent envy, evil, and trickery, and/or growth, renewal, and life, as lush vegetation. In Arthurian legend the green knight slew all who attempted to cross his bridge, until he was killed by Arthur. In this respect green can be seen as death's unbiased nature and the slaying of the naive.” That last bit sounds most relevant, doesn’t it? And lastly – “Yellow often stands for light, the sun’s rays, intellect, faith, and/or goodness.” So with this as a rough guide, it seems that our maiden wisely rejects both war and death in favour of faith and goodness.
But you know, what the hell do I know? In the words of Paul Hackett, “What do you want from me?! I’m just a word processor!” Any folklorists out there? I sure would like to get this sorted out.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 2:48 PM
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