Vashnarian Songbook

By: Gani Posted on: March 22, 2004

The first page in the booklet, My Mother Were a Flute and My Father Were a Pipe, is a traditional bard's ditty, handed down through the generations of their music-loving village.

REFRAIN:

My mother were a flute and my father were a pipe

And I were born a mere sweet song

They'd play together through the night

And that is how I came along

My father's song were crude and tough

And why my piping's edge be rough

My father's song were fair but loud

And why I'll be not eas'ly cowed

REFRAIN

My mother's song were slipp'ry high

And brings fair memory in my eye

My mother's song were golden pure

I try to keep my pipes so sure

REFRAIN

Our house were always music fair

We breathed in melody with air

A joyous note together they'd play

Tunes made up mine every day

REFRAIN

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The next several pages are filled with instrumental dance tunes. One of the best known is a jig popular among warriors, My Trousers Decayed and Lawks Does This Fieldplate Itch. The tune is rather fast, and the dance that typically accompanies it is so fast as to appear twitchy to the uninformed observer.

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The next song in the booklet is a ballad to be sung by a young lass. This particular culture, as their bardly leanings would indicate, appear to have a great reverence of Scarlatti, to whom we an assume this ballad is addressed, based on the descriptions.

In great throngs of men, I notice none but His face

My body responds, and I am frozen

And when He goes, He leaves no mortal trace

For He seeks the One whom He has chosen

The most wondrous of His smiles is intended not for me

Yet when I gaze at Him, that smile is a portal

To planes not yet named, yes, when I peer through I see

I am standing at the brink of the immortal

I'll pretend She exists not, while I give voice to my song

For it aches my heart to watch Her snub Him so

It is in His endless arms that a Vashnar lass belongs

And I hate to watch Him chase Her through limbo

His hair is long and blonde, and it falls in a thick braid

Wisps dance about His head in the wind

My heart leaps to my throat, and my love will not be swayed

I stand as still as if here I've been pinned

When He stands among us, He slouches like a human

His wings are folded back with feathers creased

And yet charisma shows He is more than any true man

My love of Him can be no more than caprice

He kissed me once, perhaps He's kissed me many times

The very thought covers me in perspiration

All of my longing sings itself in simple rhymes

Forever He will be my inspiration

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The last song in the booklet is a children's rhyme, intended to encourage children to follow the bard's way of life.

With B begins the beauty of song

To bring with you all the days long

A allows the andante's beat

To give to a tune the traveller's feet

R raises rhythm and sires rhyme

Transferring music from numbers to time

D is the delight of the ditty and dirge

Two more airs with the power to surge