Fiddler's Green

Fiddler's Green is a legendary supposed afterlife, where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. In 19th-century maritime folklore it was a kind of afterlife for sailors who have served at least 50 years at sea.[1][2][3]

Literature

Fiddler's Green appears in Frederick Marryat's novel The Dog Fiend; Or, Snarleyyow, published in 1856,[4] as lyrics to a sailors' song:

At Fiddler’s Green, where seamen true
When here they’ve done their duty
The bowl of grog shall still renew
And pledge to love and beauty.

Herman Melville describes a Fiddler’s Green as a sailors’ term for the place on land “providentially set apart for dance-houses, doxies, and tapsters” in his novella Billy Budd, Sailor (published posthumously in 1924).

The author Richard McKenna wrote a story, first published in 1967, entitled "Fiddler's Green", in which he considers the power of the mind to create a reality of its own choosing, especially when a number of people consent to it. The main characters in this story are also sailors, and have known of the legend of Fiddler's Green for many years.[5]

Fiddler's Green is an extrasolar colony mentioned in Robert A. Heinlein's novels The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and Friday.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic book series, Fiddler's Green is a place located inside of the Dreaming, a place that sailors have dreamed of for centuries. Fiddler's Green is also personified as a character as well as a location in the fictional world; the former largely based upon casual associations of G. K. Chesterton. From November 12 to 14, 2004, a comic book convention promoted as "Fiddler's Green, A Sandman Convention" was held at the Millennium Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Author Neil Gaiman and several Sandman series artists and others involved in the series' publication participated in the convention, with profits benefiting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Song lyrics

- "Fiddler's Green" is a song by the Scottish band The Stereophonics

U.S. military

The Cavalrymen's Poem, also entitled "Fiddlers' Green" was published in the U.S. Army's Cavalry Journal in 1923 and became associated with the 1st Cavalry Division.[9]

The name has had other military uses. Many places associated with the U.S. Military have been named Fiddler's Green:

See also

References

  1. Eyers, Jonathan (2011). Don't Shoot the Albatross!: Nautical Myths and Superstitions. A&C Black, London, UK. ISBN 978-1-4081-3131-2.
  2. "The Sailor's magazine, and naval journal – American Seamen's Friend Society". Life on the Ocean. American Seamen's Friend Society. February 1898. p. 168. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  3. Hotten, John Camden (1869). The slang dictionary: or, the vulgar words, street phrases, and "fast" expressions of high and low society.
  4. Marryat, Frederick (1856). The dog fiend: or, Snarleyyow. G. Routledge & Company. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  5. McKenna, R. Casey Agonistes and other SF and Fantasy stories, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1976.
  6. Blood, Peter; Patterson, Annie, eds. (1988). Rise Up Singing. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Sing Out!. p. 201. ISBN 1-881322-12-2. O Fiddler's Green is a place I've heard tell, where fishermen go if they don't go to hell
  7. "Hans Zimmer – Hoist the Colours Lyrics". Metrolyrics.com. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9whbpYwk680
  9. "Fiddler's Green and other Cavalry Songs by JHS". Cavalry Journal. April 1923.
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