20th of March
From: abbysale@orlinter.com (Abby Sale) Newsgroups: rec.music.folk,uk.music.folk Subject: Happy! Date: 1997/03/20 3/20 in 1997 at 08:56 EST: Spring On the first day of Spring in the year of ninety-three There was great recreation was in this country There was gentlemen and farmers over hills and dales and rocks They rode so joyfully in search of a fox. Tally-ho, hark away, tally-ho hark away Tally-ho, hark away me boys away, hark away. "Reynard The Fox," MacColl, _Champions and Sporting Blades_ (There's also another, subtly different version in DT that Martin Jonas contributed. That one seems to have, by using a very few different phrases, presented itself as a political statement rather than a joke. While there are a number of excellent & sometimes beautiful fox-hunting songs, the one time I personally dealt with the drunken, arrogant assholes on the farm in Berwickshire, I found myself close to vomiting. This was just watching the hunters - there was no fox in sight. Dave Goulder said it well. Anyway, my version has the dying fox complimenting his brave, aristocratic killers. But it's a good song, never-the-less. AND Happy Eostre, re Goddess of the Anglo-Saxon Dawn; Vernal Equinox, Feast of Planting and Rebirth AND MAYBE ALSO Alban Eilir, witches' sabbat These seem to vary in every reference to them. Since there's nothing "official," Happy Everything!© Abby Sale - all rights reserved
