Sang King Quotes

And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

And he sang to them, now in the Elven tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.

I ordered a coffee and a little something to eat and savored the warmth and dryness. Somewhere in the background Nat King Cole sang a perky tune. I watched the rain beat down on the road outside and told myself that one day this would be twenty years ago.

The demon kept pulling him unconscious, and in those short bursts of blackness, the dreamer snatched at light, and when he swam back to consciousness, he thrust the dream into reality. He shaped them into flapping creatures and earthbound stars and flaming crowns and golden notes that sang by themselves and mint leaves scattered across the blood-streaked pavement and scraps of paper with jagged handwriting on them: Unguibus et rostro. But he was dying.

It was funny stuff, sanity. When it was taken away, you didn’t know it. You didn’t feel its departure. You only really knew it when it was restored, like some rare wild bird which lived and sang within you not by decree but by choice.

Golden head by golden head, Like two pigeons in one nest Folded in each other's wings, They lay down in their curtained bed: Like two blossoms on one stem, Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow, Like two wands of ivory Tipped with gold for awful kings. Moon and stars gazed in at them, Wind sang to them lullaby, Lumbering owls forbore to fly, Not a bat flapped to and fro Round their rest: Cheek to cheek and breast to breast Locked together in one nest.

But assholes like Darus, and Lohr Varius--with his public weirdness and declarations of king vampire bullshit, fed the stigma and misconceptions like a Twilight fanatic at a Robert Pattinson rally. ~Slade

Then suddenly he beheld his sister Éowyn as she lay, and he knew her. He stood a moment as a man who is pierced in the midst of a cry by an arrow through the heart; and then his face went deathly white; and a cold fury rose in him, so that all speech failed him for a while. A fey mood took him. 'Éowyn, Éowyn!' he cried at last: 'Éowyn, how come you here? What madness or devilry is this? Death, death, death! Death take us all!' Then without taking counsel or waiting for the approach of the men of the City, he spurred headlong back to the front of the great host, and blew a horn, and cried aloud for the onset. Over the field rang his clear voice calling: 'Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending!' And with that the host began to move. But the Rohirrim sang no more. Death they cried with one voice loud and terrible, and gathering speed like a great tide their battle swept about their fallen king and passed, roaring away southwards.

Kalmar nodded. "I'm sorry, Papa. I wasn't strong enough." "None of us are, lad. Me least of all." Esben smiled and took a rattling breath. "But it's weakness that the Maker turns to strength. Your fur is why you alone loved a dying cloven. You alone in all the world knew my need and ministered to my wounds." Esben pulled Kalmar closer and kissed him on the head. "And in my weakness, I alone know your need. Hear me, son. I loved you when you were born. I loved you when I wept in the Deeps of Throg. I loved you even as you sang the song that broke you. And I love you now in the glory of your humility. You're more fit to be the king than I ever was. Do you understand?" Kalmar shook his head. Esben smiled and shuddered with pain. "A good answer, my boy. Then do you believe that I love you?" "Yes, sir. I believe you." Kalmar buried his face in his father's fur. "Remember that in the days to come. Nia, Janner, Leeli - help him to remember.

…I started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that’s just the way it came out.

It was pleasant to think that men still sang, even in the midst of butchery and famine.

These marvels were great and comfortable ones, but in the old England there was a greater still. The weather behaved itself. In the spring all the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang; in the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed; in the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory; and in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush.

The lions of hard rock, guys like Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, Brian Johnson, Rob Halford, these monsters feel completely timeless, iconic, eternal. They simply shall not, will not, do not die. It's almost impossible to imagine a musical world without Robert Plant. No metal fan of any stripe can imagine a day when, say, Iron Maiden shuts it all down because Bruce Dickinson turned 85 and suddenly can't remember the lyrics to "Hallowed Be Thy Name." Metal revels in the raw energy and unchecked phantasmagorical ridiculousness of youth. It is all fire and testosterone and rebellious fantasy. It doesn't go well with reality. So it is for hard rock and a guy like Dio, an elfin titan with an undying love for lasers and sorcery, dragons and kings. The man wrote some terribly corny metal songs, but he sang every one with a ferocity and love and total honesty. He also wrote some of the finest hard rock melodies of all time, sang them with a precision and love unmatched by any hard rock singer since. It's a rare thing to give metal some heartfelt props. It is time. Raise your devil horns and salute.

The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin's Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes' mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin's folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge's fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin's halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep. -The Song of Durin

For suddenly above him far and faint his song was taken up, and a voice answering called to him. Maedhros it was that sang amid his torment. But Fingon climbed to the foot of the precipice where his kinsman hung; and then he could go no farther, and he wept when he saw the cruel device of Morgoth. Maedhros therefore, being in anguish without hope, begged Fingon to shoot him with his bow; and Fingon strung an arrow, and bent his bow. And seeing no better hope he cried to Manwe, saying: 'O King to whom birds are dear, speed now this feathered shaft, and recall some pity for the Noldor in their need!'....Now, even as Fingon bent his bow, there flew down from the high airs Thorondor, King of Eagles, mightiest of all birds that have ever been, whose outstretched wings spanned thirty fathoms; and staying Fingon's hand he took him up, and bore him to the face of the rock where Maethros hung.

It's a booley village," Ian told her. "The islanders used to take their animals into the hills for the summ. They'd camp out in these stone huts: men, women, and children. Everyone stayed up all night, sang, told stories, watched the stars. It must have been great craic." "How do you know this stuff?" she asked, admiringly. "I' a bloody genius." When she threw him a look, he grinned. " I also read it in the guidebook.

The contemporary Matthew Paris wrote that, ‘foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the foulness of King John’. A bard sang that ‘no man may ever trust him, for his heart is soft and cowardly’. Yet this evil was catalyst for a greater good, Magna Carta.

But the Lady Amalthea and Prince Lir walked and spoke and sang together as blithely as though King Haggard's castle had become a green wood, wild and shadowy with spring. They climbed the crooked towers like hills, picnicked in stone meadows under a stone sky, and splashed up and down stairways that had softened and quickened into streams.

Barefoot surefoot lightfoot, she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal.

That vast voice from the darkness beyond the fence sang of that love; he heard it. And of simple forgiveness rather than the difficult forced march of atonement? He thought it was.

Dark green mountains knuckled up in the distance. Clouds seemed to be melting on the pan of the fair blue sky. Birds flew and sang. Wasn't it a hell of a shame, the way good country got wasted on folks.

then the organ began to play the opening bars of the national anthem and they all sang, a choir of thousands of voices, and it sent shivers up her spine to know the subject of the anthem, the king himself, was listening.

Eventually, decades later, when the king was dying, the queen gently ushered everybody out into the corridor, closed the door to the royal bedchamber, and got into bed with her husband. She started singing to him. They laughed. He was short of breath, but he could still laugh. They asked each other, Is this silly? Is this...pretentious? But they both knew that everything there was to say had been said already, over and over, across the years. And so the king, relieved, released, free to be silly, asked her to sing him a song from his childhood. He didn't need to be regal anymore, he didn't need to seem commanding or dignified, not with her. They were, in their way, dying together, and they both knew it. It wasn't happening only to him. So she started singing. They shared one last laugh - they agreed that the cat had a better voice than she did. Still, she sang him out of the world.

The witch approached it and pared its edges with a sword that she drew from her thigh. Then she sat down beside it on the earth and sang to it while it cooled. Not like the runes that enraged the flames was the song she sang to the sword: she whose curses had blasted the fire till it shrivelled big logs of oak crooned now a melody like a wind in summer blowing from wild wood gardens that no man tended, down valleys loved once by children, now lost to them but for dreams, a song of such memories as lurk and hide along the edges of oblivion, now flashing from beautiful years of glimpse of some golden moment, now passing swiftly out of remembrance again, to go back to the shades of oblivion, and leaving on the mind those faintest traces of little shining feet which when dimly perceived by us are called regrets. She sang of old Summer noons in the time of harebells: she sang on that high dark heath a song that seemed so full of mornings and evenings preserved with all their dews by her magical craft from days that had else been lost, that Alveric wondered of each small wandering wing, that her fire had lured from the dusk, if this were the ghost of some day lost to man, called up by the force of her song from times that were fairer.

One tree resisted for longer than the others. She was the oldest, and had seen a demon before, and knew that sometimes it wasn't about saving yourself, it was about holding out for long enough until someone else could save you. So she held out, and stretched for the stars even as her roots were being dug away, and she held out, and she sang to other trees even as her trunk was rotting out, and she held out, and she dreamt of the sky even as she was unmade.

You are the king no doubt, but in one respect, at least, I am your equal: the right to reply. I claim that privilege too. I am not your slave. I serve Apollo. I don't need Creon to speak for me in public. So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this. You with your precious eyes, you're blind to the corruption in your life, to the house you live in, those you live with- who are your parents? Do you know? All unknowing you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood, the dead below the earth and the living here above, and the double lash of your mother and your father's curse will whip you from this land one day, their footfall treading you down in terror, darkness shrouding your eyes that now can see the light! Soon, soon, you'll scream aloud - what haven won't reverberate? What rock of Cithaeron won't scream back in echo? That day you learn the truth about your marriage, the wedding-march that sang you into your halls, the lusty voyage home to the fatal harbor! And a crowd of other horrors you'd never dream will level you with yourself and all your children. There. Now smear us with insults - Creon, myself and every word I've said. No man will ever be rooted from the earth as brutally as you.

David’s mouth dripped open slowly. He stood with his heels dug into my carpet, a dashed hope, a broken dream. No amount of money could top the priceless look that gathered on his face like an unmade bed. His eyebrows crumpled and furrowed like disheveled sheets. His lips curled into an acidic smirk. Confusion and shock collided in the cornea of his dilated pupils. He was a B.B. King song, personified. His entire body sang the blues.

to Sam’s final and complete satisfaction and pure joy, a minstrel of Gondor stood forth, and knelt, and begged leave to sing. And behold! he said: ‘Lo! lords and knights and men of valour unashamed, kings and princes, and fair people of Gondor, and Riders of Rohan, and ye sons of Elrond, and Dúnedain of the North, and Elf and Dwarf, and greathearts of the Shire, and all free folk of the West, now listen to my lay. For I will sing to you of Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom.’ And when Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: ‘O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!’ And then he wept. And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.

Fifty yards ahead of us, a doe had come out of the woods. She stepped delicately over one rusty GS&WM track and onto the railbed, where the weeds and goldenrod were so high they brushed against her sides. She paused there, looking at us calmly, ears cocked forward. What I remember about that moment was the silence. No bird sang, no plane went droning overhead. If my mother had been with us, she'd have had her camera and would have been taking pictures like mad. Thinking of that made me miss her in a way I hadn't in years.

What if I can’t find it? What if I can’t find that particular pumping-station? The breath tore in and out of his lungs, hot and bloody-tasting in the back of his throat. A stitch was sinking into his side. His buttocks sang where the rock had hit him. Beverly had said Henry and his friends meant to kill them, and Ben believed it now, yes he did. He came to

…but to the unicorn’s eyes Molly was becoming a softer country, full of pools and caves, where old flowers came burning out of the ground. Under the dirt and indifference, she appeared only thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old - no older than Schmendrick, surely, despite the magician’s birthdayless face. Her rough hair bloomed, her skin quickened, and her voice was nearly as gentle to all things as it was when she spoke to the unicorn. The eyes would never be joyous, any more than they could ever turn green or blue, but they too had wakened in the earth. She walked eagerly into King Haggard’s realm on bare, blistered feet, and she sang often. And far away on the other side of the unicorn, Schmendrick the Magician stalked in silence. His black cloak was sprouting holes, coming undone, and so was he. The rain that renewed Molly did not fall on him, and he seemed ever more parched and deserted, like the land itself. The unicorn could not heal him. A touch of her horn could have brought him back from death, but over despair she had no power, nor over magic that had come and gone.

Then his lungs seemed to open up again, each breath going deeper than the one before. His sneakers (not blinding white Adidas, just ratty old Pumas) seemed to shed the lead coating they had gained. His previous lightness of body came rushing back. It was what Milly had called the following wind, and what pros like McComb no doubt called the runner's high. Scott preferred that. He remembered that day in his yard, flexing his knees, leaping, and catching the branch of the tree. He remembered running up and down the bandstand steps. He remembered dancing across the kitchen floor as Stevie Wonder sang "Superstition." This was the same. Not a wind, not even a high, exactly, but an elevation. A sense that you had gone beyond yourself and could go farther still.

My darter ha' ate five, five pies to-day. My darter ha' ate five, five pies to-day." The king was coming down the street, and he heard her sing, but what she sang he couldn't hear, so he stopped and said: "What was that you were singing, my good woman?" The woman was ashamed to let him hear what her daughter had been doing, so she sang, instead of that: "My darter ha' spun five, five skeins to-day.

What sorrow is like to the sorrow of one who is alone? Once I dwelt in the company of the king I loved well, And my arm was heavy with the weight of the rings he gave, And my heart weighed down with the gold of his love. The face the king is like the sun to those who surrounded,. But now my heart is empty And I wander along throughout the world. The groves take on their blossoms, The trees and meadows grow fair But the cuckoo, saddest of singers, Cries forth the only sorrow of the exile, And now my heart hoes wandering, In search of what I shall never see more; All faces are alike to me if I cannot see the face of my king, And all countries are alike to me When I cannot see the fair fields and meadows of my home. So I shall arise and follow my heart in its wandering For what is the fair meadow of home to me When I cannot see the face of my king And the weight on my arm is but a band of gold When the heart is empty of the weight of love. And so I shall go roaming Over the fishers' road And the road of the great whale And beyond the country of the wave With none to bear me company But the memory of those I loved And the songs I sang out of a full heart, And the cuckoo's cry in memory.

By noon Carter reached the jasper terraces of Kiran which slope down to the river's edge and bear that temple of loveliness wherein the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far realm on the twilight sea once a year in a golden palanquin to pray to the god of Oukranos, who sang to him in youth when he dwelt in a cottage by its banks. All of jasper is that temple, and covering an acre of ground with its walls and courts, its seven pinnacled towers, and its inner shrine where the river enters through hidden channels and the god sings softly in the night. Many times the moon hears strange music as it shines on those courts and terraces and pinnacles, but whether that music be the song of the god or the chant of the cryptical priests, none but the King of Ilek-Vad may say; for only he had entered the temple or seen the priests. Now, in the drowsiness of day, that carven and delicate fane was silent, and Carter heard only the murmur of the great stream and the hum of the birds and bees as he walked onward under the enchanted sun.

At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before: Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor! With that he seized a great horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains. Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor! Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Eomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first eored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Theoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. his golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

I may not have found Bo, but I did find someone else. An old friend of mine I didn’t even know I missed. And his name was Revenge. “Reunited and it feels so goooooood,” I sang out the open truck window as we flew over The Causeway.

La religion du Crucifié était une religion comme une autre, qui enseignait que l'amour et le meurtre étaient inextricablement liés l'un à l'autre et qu'à la fin, Dieu finissait toujours par boire du sang. (Les Petites Sœurs d'Eluria)

ACT16.25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. ACT16.26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.

Il y a dans le sang quelque chose qui va au-delà de la mémoire ou des ressemblances physiques transmises de génération en génération. Une façon d'être. Une façon de voir. Ça ne se mange pas, mais c'est de la force. Leurs âmes ou leur - ka - ont disparu mais il reste quelque chose, même dans leurs cerveaux et leurs corps morts.

Spleen Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux, Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux, Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes, S'ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d'autres bêtes. Rien ne peut l'égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon, Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon. Du bouffon favori la grotesque ballade Ne distrait plus le front de ce cruel malade; Son lit fleurdelisé se transforme en tombeau, Et les dames d'atour, pour qui tout prince est beau, Ne savent plus trouver d'impudique toilette Pour tirer un souris de ce jeune squelette. Le savant qui lui fait de l'or n'a jamais pu De son être extirper l'élément corrompu, Et dans ces bains de sang qui des Romains nous viennent, Et dont sur leurs vieux jours les puissants se souviennent, II n'a su réchauffer ce cadavre hébété Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé // I'm like the king of a rain-country, rich but sterile, young but with an old wolf's itch, one who escapes his tutor's monologues, and kills the day in boredom with his dogs; nothing cheers him, darts, tennis, falconry, his people dying by the balcony; the bawdry of the pet hermaphrodite no longer gets him through a single night; his bed of fleur-de-lys becomes a tomb; even the ladies of the court, for whom all kings are beautiful, cannot put on shameful enough dresses for this skeleton; the scholar who makes his gold cannot invent washes to cleanse the poisoned element; even in baths of blood, Rome's legacy, our tyrants' solace in senility, he cannot warm up his shot corpse, whose food is syrup-green Lethean ooze, not blood. — Robert Lowell, from Marthiel & Jackson Matthews, eds., The Flowers of Evil (NY: New Directions, 1963)

So sang the ancient Egyptians. And they were right. For, thanks to the Nile, their land grew rich and powerful. Mightiest of all was their king. One king ruled over all the Egyptians, and the first to do so was King Menes. Do you remember when that was? It was in 3100 BC. And can you also remember – perhaps from Bible stories – what those

Clever bird, clever man, clever clever fool,”said Patchface, jangling. “Oh, clever clever clever fool.”He began to sing. “The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord,”he sang, hopping from one foot to the other and back again. “The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord.”He jerked his head with each word, the bells in his antlers sending up a clangor.

Furious, the beast writhed and wriggled its iterated integrals beneath the King’s polynomial blows, collapsed into an infinite series of indeterminate terms, then got back up by raising itself to the nth power, but the King so belabored it with differentials and partial derivatives that its Fourier coefficients all canceled out (see Riemann’s Lemma), and in the ensuing confusion the constructors completely lost sight of both King and beast. So they took a break, stretched their legs, had a swig from the Leyden jug to bolster their strength, then went back to work and tried it again from the beginning, this time unleashing their entire arsenal of tensor matrices and grand canonical ensembles, attacking the problem with such fervor that the very paper began to smoke. The King rushed forward with all his cruel coordinates and mean values, stumbled into a dark forest of roots and logarithms, had to backtrack, then encountered the beast on a field of irrational numbers (F1) and smote it so grievously that it fell two decimal places and lost an epsilon, but the beast slid around an asymptote and hid in an n-dimensional orthogonal phase space, underwent expansion and came out, fuming factorially, and fell upon the King and hurt him passing sore. But the King, nothing daunted, put on his Markov chain mail and all his impervious parameters, took his increment Δk to infinity and dealt the beast a truly Boolean blow, sent it reeling through an x-axis and several brackets—but the beast, prepared for this, lowered its horns and—wham!!—the pencils flew like mad through transcendental functions and double eigentransformations, and when at last the beast closed in and the King was down and out for the count, the constructors jumped up, danced a jig, laughed and sang as they tore all their papers to shreds, much to the amazement of the spies perched in the chandelier-—perched in vain, for they were uninitiated into the niceties of higher mathematics and consequently had no idea why Trurl and Klapaucius were now shouting, over and over, “Hurrah! Victory!!

This sort of reading of the Apocalypse was nowhere more eloquently performed than in the simple anthem of the U.S. Civil Rights movement: “We Shall Overcome.” The word “overcome” was taken from the King James Version’s rendering of the verb nikan, used pervasively in Revelation and translated in most modern versions as “conquer.”33 The word is used in the refrain of promise that concludes each of the letters to the seven churches. For example, “To him that over-cometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (3:21, KJV). As freedom marchers from the black churches joined hands and sang, “We shall overcome someday,” they were expressing their faith that, despite their lack of conventional political power, their witness to the truth would prevail over violence and oppression.

The grass was heavy with dew, sparkling in this clear, new light. Somewhere a bird sang and then was silent. On the few occasions since her preteenage years when she had been awake and alone at dawn without some responsibility to fulfill as the reason, she had a lonely but somehow uplifted feeling—a paradoxical sense of newness and continuity. This morning she felt nothing so clean and good. There was only a dragging sense of unease

Tristran tugged and pulled out the stopper of the bottle. He could smell something intoxicating, like honey mixed with wood smoke and cloves. He passed the bottle back to the little man. “It’s a crime to drink something as rare and good as this out of the bottle,” said the little hairy man. He untied the little wooden cup from his belt and, trembling, poured a small amount of an amber-colored liquid into it. He sniffed it, then sipped it, then he smiled, with small, sharp teeth. “Aaaahhhh. That’s better.” He passed the cup to Tristran. “Sip it slowly,” he said. “It’s worth a king’s ransom, this bottle. It cost me two large blue-white diamonds, a mechanical bluebird which sang, and a dragon’s scale.” Tristran sipped the drink. It warmed him down to his toes and made him feel like his head was filled with tiny bubbles. “Good, eh?” Tristran nodded. “Too good for the likes of you and me, I’m afraid. Still. It hits the spot in times of trouble, of which this is certainly one.

He felt sick as the laughter bubbled inside him. He held his breath and then exhaled as he allowed the mirth to ascend. His heart danced to the symphony of destruction that sang within his mind as a spell, bred of chaos, shimmered in the air before him. He grinned, and the thrill of it pressed him into a fit of giggles. Finally, he whipped his hands forward, and he shouted. It was a terrible sound, a sound of anguish and desire. A silent wave of dark energy cut a scar across the water toward the farthest ship. He could see its crew scrambling, as if it might do them some good. Wards began rising along the ship’s bow, and Wesson’s laughter grew.

When I was six, I cried for almost an hour in the parking lot of the King of Prussia Mall because my mom wouldn’t buy me a Godzilla DVD.” She actually looks up at me. “What?” “To be fair, it was King Kong vs. Godzilla, the old one. I just thought the cover looked cool. It was only five bucks in the bargain bin. But yeah, almost an hour. And she sat there in silence the whole time until I finally started to calm down. Then you know what she did?” Cara shakes her head and reaches out for the water. I try not to look at her as she drinks. “She queues up a song on her phone and hits play. And it’s the Rolling Stones. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’ I cried for another seven minutes while she sang at the top of her lungs.

On this side of eternity, Christmas is still a promise. Yes, the Savior has come, and with him peace on earth, but the story is not finished. Yes, there is peace in our hearts, but we long for peace in our world. Every Christmas is still a “turning of the page” until Jesus returns. Every December 25 marks another year that draws us closer to the fulfillment of the ages, that draws us closer to . . . home. When we realize that Jesus is the answer to our deepest longing, even Christmas longings, each Advent brings us closer to his glorious return to earth. When we see him as he is, King of kings and Lord of lords, that will be “Christmas” indeed! Talk about giving Christmas gifts! Just think of this abundance . . . You do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. (1 Cor. 1:7) And carols? You’re about to hear singing like you’ve never heard before. Listen . . . Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.” (Rev. 19:6, nasb) Christmas choirs? Never was there a choir like the one about to be assembled . . . They held harps given them by God and sang . . . the song of the Lamb: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.” (Rev. 15:2–3) True, Main Street in your town may be beautifully decorated for the season, but picture this . . . The twelve gates [of the city] were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. (Rev. 21:21) Oh, and yes, we love the glow of candles on a cold winter’s night and the twinkling of Christmas lights in the dark, but can you imagine this? There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Rev. 22:5) Heaven is about to happen. The celebration is about to burst on the scene. We stand tiptoe at the edge of eternity, ready to step into the new heaven and the new earth. And I can hardly wait.

The vision which has been so faintly suggested in these pages has never been confined to monks or even to friars. It has been an inspiration to innumerable crowds of ordinary married men and women; living lives like our own, only entirely different. That morning glory which St. Francis spread over the earth and sky has lingered as a secret sunshine under a multitude of roots and in a multitude of rooms. In societies like ours nothing is known of such a Franciscan following. Nothing is known of such obscure followers; and if possible less is known of the well-known followers. If we imagine passing us in the street a pageant of the Third Order of St. Francis, the famous figures would surprise us more than the strange ones. For us it would be like the unmasking of some mighty secret society. There rides St. Louis, the great king, lord of the higher justice whose scales hang crooked in favour of the poor. There is Dante crowned with laurel, the poet who in his life of passions sang the praises of Lady Poverty, whose grey garment is lined with purple and all glorious within. All sorts of great names from the most recent and rationalistic centuries would stand revealed; the great Galvani, for instance, the father of all electricity, the magician who has made so many modern systems of stars and sounds. So various a following would alone be enough to prove that St. Francis had no lack of sympathy with normal men, if the whole of his own life did not prove it.

The Sultan tapped his tented fingers, staring into the distance. Suddenly, he lunged toward me, took hold of my wrist, and pulled me roughly down to sit on the cushion beside him. “This . . . mermaid,” he said through clenched teeth, leaning in so close to me that I could smell the mint on his breath. “The one who sang to the king at night.” His voice was fierce, but quiet. I couldn’t tell if anyone but me could hear. “How . . .” he began. “How did she think of the king . . . in her heart?” I glanced quickly up at his face and saw there a look that took me by surprise. An oddly soft, vulnerable, hurting look. The look of a man who might cry out in his sleep at night, like a child. But then the stony mask slid back. “Did she despise him,” the Sultan asked, “for making her sing for her life each night? Did she only pretend affection to save her own skin? Did she . . . loathe him for what he had done before, to his other wives? For his . . . sins?” “No, my lord,” I said softly. “She loved him.” “Do you swear it?” He gripped my wrist harder, until it hurt. “Yes, my lord. She told me—” I stopped, corrected myself. “She told the mermaid with the broken fin. She said the king—the merman king, my lord—she said that he had a deep hurting inside him. She said that she wanted to soothe him. And when the mermaid with the broken fin . . . questioned how the queen could love him—because of the things you just said, my lord—the queen said, ‘I’m not ashamed of loving him. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. It’s hating—that’s what’s wrong.

Look,” she said. They both looked, but almost at once Drinian said in a low voice: “Turn round at once, your Majesties--that’s right, with our backs to the sea. And don’t look as if we were talking about anything important.” “Why, what’s the matter?” said Lucy as she obeyed. “It’ll never do for the sailors to see all that,” said Drinian. “We’ll have men falling in love with a sea-woman, or falling in love with the under-sea country itself, and jumping overboard. I’ve heard of that kind of thing happening before in strange seas. It’s always unlucky to see these people.” “But we used to know them,” said Lucy. “In the old days at Cair Paravel when my brother Peter was High King. They came to the surface and sang at our coronation.” “I think that must have been a different kind, Lu,” said Edmund. “They could live in the air as well as under water. I rather think these can’t. By the look of them they’d have surfaced and started attacking us long ago if they could. They seem very fierce.” “At any rate,” began Drinian, but at that moment two sounds were heard. One was a plop. The other was a voice from the fighting-top shouting, “Man overboard!” Then everyone was busy. Some of the sailors hurried aloft to take in the sail; others hurried below to get to the oars; and Rhince, who was on duty on the poop, began to put the helm hard over so as to come round and back to the man who had gone overboard. But by now everyone knew that it wasn’t strictly a man. It was Reepicheep. “Drat that mouse!” said Drinian. “It’s more trouble than all the rest of the ship’s company put together.

There. On the end.” Flowers pointed. “Wait. I’ll go announce you.” He slipped inside the tent, leaving Griff to contemplate the gilded skull of his old friend. In life, Ser Myles Toyne had been ugly as sin. His famous forebear, the dark and dashing Terrence Toyne of whom the singers sang, had been so fair of face that even the king’s mistress could not resist him; but Myles had been possessed of jug ears, a crooked jaw, and the biggest nose that Jon Connington had ever seen. When he smiled at you, though, none of that mattered. Blackheart, his men had named him, for the sigil on his shield. Myles had loved the name and all it hinted at. “A captain-general should be feared, by friend and foe alike,” he had once confessed. “If men think me cruel, so much the better.” The truth was otherwise. Soldier to the bone, Toyne was fierce but always fair, a father to his men and always generous to the exile lord Jon Connington.

She filched one anyway, and ate it on her way out. It was stuffed with chopped nuts and fruit and cheese, the crust flaky and still warm from the oven. Eating Ser Amory’s tart made Arya feel daring. Barefoot sure-foot lightfoot, she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal. —A CLASH OF KINGS Medieval Arya Tart Take Wyn, & putte in a potte, an clarifyd hony, an Saunderys, pepir, Safroun, Clowes, Maces, & Quybibys, & mynced Datys, Pynys and Roysonys of Corauns, & a lytil Vynegre, & sethe it on þe fyre; an sethe fygys in Wyne, & grynde hem, & draw hem þorw a straynoure, & caste þer-to, an lete hem boyle alle to-gederys … þan kytte hem y lyke lechyngys, an caste hem in fayre Oyle, and fry hem a lytil whyle; þanne take hem owt of þe panne, an caste in-to a vesselle with þe Syrippe, & so serue hem forth, þe bryndonys an þe Sirippe, in a dysshe; & let þe Sirippe þe rennyng, & not to styf. —TWO FIFTEENTH-CENTURY COOKERY-BOOKS

Sam Moore had scuffled his way into hosting a talent show at a nightclub, the King of Hearts, in his hometown of Miami. Dave Prater was a bread baker. Sam remembers that when Dave signed up for that week’s show, he was wearing his baker’s whites; wherever he walked, he left behind white flour shoe prints. At the auditions, Dave sang a Jackie Wilson song, “Doggin’ Around,” but realized he didn’t know the verses. Sam, whose job depended on selecting acts that would produce a good show, agreed to stay close during the performance and feed him the lines. But that night, Sam’s foot caught the microphone cable, and as the mike began to fall, Dave went down to catch it and Sam went down to catch Dave. Choreographers couldn’t have written it better: They came up together, singing and with the mike in hand. In that little mix-up, an act was born that would last the better part of twenty-two years and would remain forever a part of the public consciousness.

Our king Apollo, O child of mighty Zeus, when you were born your father gave you a gold headband and a lyre of tortoise shell, and more: a chariot drawn by swans. You were to go to Delphi and the Kastalian springs whose waters are the gift of broad Kephissos, and there deliver justice to the Hellenes through the oracles. But when you seized the reins, you made the swans sail north to the distant land of the Hyperboreans, and though the Delphians begged you to return—with paeans of flutes and circles of women dancing about the tripod— Apollo, you remained to rule that people through the long year. Came the season when the tripod rings loud and clear in Delphi, you turned the swans to Parnassos. It was high noon of summer when you glided back from the far northlands; swallows and nightingales were singing; cicadas also sang about you; silver brooks poured down from Kastalia, and the great river Kephissos threw blue-foaming waves into the bright wind, yes, even the waters knew a god was coming home.

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the predestination and inevitability of his every action. “The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord.” A king is history’s slave. History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes. Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples [To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples]—as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him—he had never been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the hive life—that is to say, for history—whatever had to be performed.

So they rolled up their sleeves and sat down to experiment -- by simulation, that is mathematically and all on paper. And the mathematical models of King Krool and the beast did such fierce battle across the equation-covered table, that the constructors' pencils kept snapping. Furious, the beast writhed and wriggled its iterated integrals beneath the King's polynomial blows, collapsed into an infinite series of indeterminate terms, then got back up by raising itself to the nth power, but the King so belabored it with differentials and partial derivatives that its Fourier coefficients all canceled out (see Riemann's Lemma), and in the ensuing confusion the constructors completely lost sight of both King and beast. So they took a break, stretched their legs, had a swig from the Leyden jug to bolster their strength, then went back to work and tried it again from the beginning, this time unleashing their entire arsenal of tensor matrices and grand canonical ensembles, attacking the problem with such fervor that the very paper began to smoke. The King rushed forward with all his cruel coordinates and mean values, stumbled into a dark forest of roots and logarithms, had to backtrack, then encountered the beast on a field of irrational numbers (F_1) and smote it so grievously that it fell two decimal places and lost an epsilon, but the beast slid around an asymptote and hid in an n-dimensional orthogonal phase space, underwent expansion and came out fuming factorially, and fell upon the King and hurt him passing sore. But the King, nothing daunted, put on his Markov chain mail and all his impervious parameters, took his increment Δk to infinity and dealt the beast a truly Boolean blow, sent it reeling through an x-axis and several brackets—but the beast, prepared for this, lowered its horns and—wham!!—the pencils flew like mad through transcendental functions and double eigentransformations, and when at last the beast closed in and the King was down and out for the count, the constructors jumped up, danced a jig, laughed and sang as they tore all their papers to shreds, much to the amazement of the spies perched in the chandelier—perched in vain, for they were uninitiated into the niceties of higher mathematics and consequently had no idea why Trurl and Klapaucius were now shouting, over and over, "Hurrah! Victory!!

I was still walking behind Mrs. Haze through the dining room when, beyond it, there came a sudden burst of greenery – “the piazza," sang out my leader, and then, without the least warning, a blue sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool of sun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses. It was the same child-the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day. And, as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess (lost, kidnapped, discovered in gypsy rags through which her nakedness smiled at the king and his hounds), I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side. With awe and delight (the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, the nurse drunk) I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my southbound mouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band of her shorts – that last mad immortal day behind the "Roches Roses." The twenty-five years I had lived since then, tapered to a palpitating point, and vanished.

He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him—the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under his command—go, count the drops of water that are in the Uske River. But if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy matter, for Eos hung the walls of it with Dawn and Sunset. He lit it with the sun and moon. There was a well in it called Ocean. And nine churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which Eos might hear Mass; and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so enchanting was the melody. Then was great bliss in all the regions of the fair folk. But Eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. What, then, did he do? Nothing less than this. He divested himself of all his glories and of his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the sweetness of the faery melody. And all the other birds said: "This is a contemptible stranger." The eagle found him not even worthy to be a prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be uttered. In short never was anyone so despised as was Eos by all the chorus of the birds. But wise men heard that song from the faery regions and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who were bards in the Isle of Britain.

Then Allan touched his harp lightly, and all words were hushed while he sang thus: "'Oh, where has thou been, my daughter? Oh, where hast thou been this day Daughter, my daughter?' 'Oh, I have been to the river's side, Where the waters lie all gray and wide, And the gray sky broods o'er the leaden tide, And the shrill wind sighs a straining.' "'What sawest thou there, my daughter? What sawest thou there this day, Daughter, my daughter?' 'Oh, I saw a boat come drifting nigh, Where the quivering rushes hiss and sigh, And the water soughs as it gurgles by, And the shrill wind sighs a straining.' "'What sailed in the boat, my daughter? What sailed in the boat this day, Daughter, my daughter?' 'Oh, there was one all clad in white, And about his face hung a pallid light, And his eyes gleamed sharp like the stars at night, And the shrill wind sighed a straining.' "'And what said he, my daughter? What said he to thee this day, Daughter, my daughter?' 'Oh, said he nought, but did he this: Thrice on my lips did he press a kiss, And my heartstrings shrunk with an awful bliss, And the shrill wind sighed a straining.' "'Why growest thou so cold, my daughter? Why growest thou so cold and white, Daughter, my daughter?' Oh, never a word the daughter said, But she sat all straight with a drooping head, For her heart was stilled and her face was dead: And the shrill wind sighed a straining." All listened in silence; and when Allan a Dale had done King Richard heaved a sigh. "By the breath of my body, Allan," quoth he, "thou hast

The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin’s Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

once there was a great king who gazed down from a tall tower upon a gardener who sang as he worked, and the king cried, ‘Ah, to have a life of no cares! If only I could be that gardener.’ And the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, the king was a gardener singing in the sun. In time the sun grew hot and the gardener stopped singing, and a fine dark cloud brought coolness and then drifted away, and it was hot again and much work remained, and the gardener cried, ‘Ah, to carry coolness wherever I go and have no cares! If only I could be that cloud.’ And the voice of the August Personage reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, the gardener was a cloud drifting across the sky. And the wind blew and the sky grew cold, and the cloud would have liked to go behind the shelter of a hill, but it could only go where the wind took it, and no matter how hard it tried to go this way the wind took it that way, and above the cloud was the bright sun. ‘Ah, to fly through wind and be warm and have no cares! If only I could be the sun,’ cried the cloud, and the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, he was the sun. It was very grand to be the sun, and he delighted in the work of sending down rays to warm some things and burn others, but it was like wearing a suit made of fire and he began to bake like bread. Above him the cool stars that were gods were sparkling in safety and serenity and the sun cried, ‘Ah, to be divine and free from care! If only I could be a god.’ And the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, he was a god, and he was beginning his third century of combat with the Stone Monkey, which had just transformed itself into a monster a hundred thousand feet tall and was wielding a trident made from the triple peaks of Mount Hua, and when he wasn’t dodging blows he could see the peaceful green earth down below him, and the god cried, ‘Ah, if only I could be a man who was safe and secure and had no cares!’ And the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so.’ And lo, he was a king who was gazing down from a tall tower upon a gardener who sang as he worked.

August 19 Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. (2 Corinthians 6:10) Sorrow was beautiful, but his beauty was the beauty of the moonlight shining through the leafy branches of the trees in the woods. His gentle light made little pools of silver here and there on the soft green moss of the forest floor. And when he sang, his song was like the low, sweet calls of the nightingale, and in his eyes was the unexpectant gaze of someone who has ceased to look for coming gladness. He could weep in tender sympathy with those who weep, but to rejoice with those who rejoice was unknown to him. Joy was beautiful, too, but hers was the radiant beauty of a summer morning. Her eyes still held the happy laughter of childhood, and her hair glistened with the sunshine’s kiss. When she sang, her voice soared upward like a skylark’s, and her steps were the march of a conqueror who has never known defeat. She could rejoice with anyone who rejoices, but to weep with those who weep was unknown to her. Sorrow longingly said, “We can never be united as one.” “No, never,” responded Joy, with eyes misting as she spoke, “for my path lies through the sunlit meadows, the sweetest roses bloom when I arrive, and songbirds await my coming to sing their most joyous melodies.” “Yes, and my path,” said Sorrow, turning slowly away, “leads through the dark forest, and moonflowers, which open only at night, will fill my hands. Yet the sweetest of all earthly songs—the love song of the night—will be mine. So farewell, dear Joy, farewell.” Yet even as Sorrow spoke, he and Joy became aware of someone standing beside them. In spite of the dim light, they sensed a kingly Presence, and suddenly a great and holy awe overwhelmed them. They then sank to their knees before Him. “I see Him as the King of Joy,” whispered Sorrow, “for on His head are many crowns, and the nailprints in His hands and feet are the scars of a great victory. And before Him all my sorrow is melting away into deathless love and gladness. I now give myself to Him forever.” “No, Sorrow,” said Joy softly, “for I see Him as the King of Sorrow, and the crown on His head is a crown of thorns, and the nailprints in His hands and feet are the scars of terrible agony. I also give myself to Him forever, for sorrow with Him must be sweeter than any joy I have ever known.” “Then we are one in Him,” they cried in gladness, “for no one but He could unite Joy and Sorrow.” Therefore they walked hand in hand into the world, to follow Him through storms and sunshine, through winter’s severe cold and the warmth of summer’s gladness, and to be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.

The space was sprawling, marked by a platform king bed in the center, canopied with gossamer curtains. The entire outside wall was glass, looking out into a landscaped garden exploding with flowers, birds, and butterflies. A small stream sang through the garden, rippling over stones. Feyi walked over to the bed and ran her hands over the flax linen sheets, her fingernails golden against the olive green.

Gaelic ritual also moved eastwards and Gaelic bards remembered its atmosphere. The place name of Scone is itself a memory of ancient ceremony. Bards sang of Scoine Sciath-Airde, ‘Scone of the High Shields’, probably a reference to the habit of warriors raising up a new king on their shields. As this precarious rite proceeded, another bardic name added a soundtrack. Scoine Sciath-Bhinne means ‘Scone of the Singing Shields’, the shouts and chants of acclamation as lords and warriors roared approval and support for the king raised on the high shields. Here is what John of Hexham wrote about the coronation of Malcolm IV in 1153: ‘and so all the people of the land, raising up Malcolm, son of Earl Henry, King David’s son (a boy still only 12 years old), established him as king at Scone (as is the custom of the Scottish nation).

[describing the Mahavamsa, 6th-century chronicle of Sri Lanka] The king Yasalakatissa, who had come to his title by killing his older brother during a watersports festival, had a gatekeeper named Subha. Subha was the spitting image of the king, and so Tasalakatissa draped Subha in royal regalia and seated him on the throne. Whole the courtiers clustered around the impostor and sang his praises, Yasalakatissa, having dressed as a gatekeeper and stationed himself at the door, shook with laughter at the ingenuity of his jape. Then one day Subha addressed the ministers while the king was laughing, 'Why does this gatekeeper laugh in my presence?' He had King Yasalakatissa killed. Subha then reigned six years. Even when the truth was later discovered, he retained his throne and became known as King Subha.

But it's weakness the Maker turns to strength. Your fur is why you alone ministered to my wounds...Hear me, son. I loved you when you were born. I loved you when I wept in the depths of Throg. I loved you even as you sang the song that broke you. And I love you now in the glory of your humility. You're more fit to be king than I ever was. Do you understand?

Soon, she was singing along, tweaking the song as she watched the sun rise over the King's City below. As she sang, her gaze wandered over the shining white walls of the palace beyond the dome. She thought of the Wood King sitting on his white throne. Of candlelit halls and attendants fluttering like moths. Of Claw's silver snout emerging from the shadows, and Rooke falling to his knees before Bog, and that creepy wall of skulls in the crypt... It was habitual. Whenever she sang a song for the first time, she sealed a memory inside the melody. Like a gift she was packaging for her future self. She'd been doing it for as long as she could remember. From now on, whenever she sang this song, she would come back to this moment, looking out over the King's City. She would remember the things that happened here.

have other memories as well. I recall the days after the 1967 war, when American Jews (myself included; I was 17) celebrated Israel’s military victory (in what was not a war of defense, as the state’s political and military leaders well understood). I recall being at a rally of United Synagogue Youth, of which I was a member in those days, when the exuberant crowd sang the song “David Melech Yisroel” (“David, the King of Israel, lives and endures”). At the end of the song, the rally leader began shouting the names of cities in Israel, with the crowd responding each time, “Yisroel!”: “Yerushalayim [Jerusalem]!” “Yisroel!” “Tel Aviv!” “Yisroel!” “Jaffa!” “Yisroel!” Then things became more eerily revealing. “Amman!” “Yisroel!” “Damascus!” “Yisroel!” “Baghdad!” “Yisroel!” “Cairo!” “Yisroel!” I’ll never forget it. Maybe that is why I can’t remain silent.

How I Am Able To Envy You How I am able to envy you—the people of the day. He talked among you He walked beside you What a great feeling it must have been To see His face To touch His robe To hear His voice On that long ago road. How I am able to envy you—the three wise men. Who traveled by night and slept by day You took your pace and haste your way When you heard a Savior is born on that day What a great joy it must have been To fell before your knees in the presence of a new born King To offered Him gifts and sang Him hymn Blessed are you because you came. How I am able to envy you—the couple that invited His company. In response to His mother’s intercession He turned your water into wine What a great glory it must have been His first miracle you have seen You have tasted the sacredness of marriage And the abundance it brings You have tasted the sweetness of love That surpasses everything By His divine presence and His mother’s arrangement Christian marriage was raised to the dignity of a Sacrament. How I am able to envy you—the ones He cured. You deliberately stood at a distance Called in a loud voice and took your chance How it must have felt The light returning to your eyes The sound returning to your ears The strength returning to your feet The cleanse you longed to feel With all who came with the desire to be healed What a great feeling it must have been He opened your eyes with faith He opened your ears with truth And He opened your hearts with love A love born from His mercy and forgiveness. How I am able to envy you—the ones He raised to life. Experienced of a soul passing out of death Into fullness of life and liberty How it must have felt Life returning to your eyes Blood rush to your veins Air thrust to your lungs Waking from your sleep What a great feeling it must have been Having tasted death and knowing its defeat To rise to the life of grace and leave behind the grave of sin. How I am able to envy you—the penitent thief next to Him. At the very hour of your death Life flashes before your eyes Condemned justly for the sentence you received Refuse to lose your faith You see a light coming from His eyes Redeemed justly from the mercy you plead What a great glory it must have been The first beneficiary of God’s mercy you have obtained The eternal salvation which you have attained The reward too great you never expected to gain Reunited with Him in the paradise with joy and no more pain. How I am able to envy you—the seventy-two He sent out. His divine commission upon your head The power He bestowed The fire in your blood Your loyalty in His name The kindness in your heart The unceasing hope to succeed You performed miracles in His name What a great honor it must have been To be His hands and feet To be His ears and mouth To be His usable instrument On that triumphant and glorious moment. How I am able to envy you—the twelve He called His own Dine with Him Taught by Him Traveled beside Him Being with Him for years on end How I long to learn those words The way that you learned them from Him What a great feeling it must have been To touch and hold Him closed—as a Son of Man, as I never can.

I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple—that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law—and it was opened. Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. - Revelation 15:1-6

Matt’s Creation Room was a wide, colorful space dedicated to music. The walls were splashed with bright orange paint, green sofas, and cushions, which contrasted with the serious, dark upright Yamaha piano in the center of the room. There were other instruments in the room: several guitars, a violin, several drums, a bass guitar. The walls were like a private Hall of Fame covered with posters and even relics of famous singers. One wall was covered with pictures of Matt and his three platinum albums Matt, Superstar, and Moving On. The room was bathed in light entering through the wide windows. It was Matt’s Creation Room and he had obviously decorated the room according to his own tastes. After finishing her scales while waiting for Matt, she posted herself next to the windows to practice her audition song for La Cenerentola that Saturday evening. It was a beautiful, sorrowful song that Cinderella sang in the first scene about a king who looked for true love not in splendor and beauty, but in innocence and goodness.

Specially in Nepal and Indian simultaneously in pure consciousness soul in UK, in Europe, America, Australia, Asia and few parts of Africa they tell a fable about Shreeom as a Vishnu that: There was once a great devotee of Dhurba who prayed night and day to see his God Shreeom Vishnu. The father and mother of Dhrub name are Uttanapad and Suniti respectively. The devotion is a lesson in surrendering all one's cares and worries to the Divine Shreeom Vishnu. King Uttanapada,the son of Manu had two wives, one named Suruchi who was very dear to him and the other, Suniti, to whom he was indifferent. helpless on account of the king’s neglect. One day Suniti’s son Dhruva saw Uttama, Suruchi’s son, sitting on the lap of the king, their father. When the king took up Dhurba on his lap, a jealous Suruchi severely abused the king. Dhruva went away heart-broken to his mother, who advised him that the one way to overcome the bad effects of one’s own past actions was to seek shelter at your feet. Hearing his mother’s words, Dhruva just five years old but highly sensitive and self-respecting, very faithful and devotion left the city, determined to devote himself to Vishnu Shreeom worship. He had an opportune meeting with Sage Narada and being instructed in Shreeom sacred name, then Dhurba entered the forest of Madhu, where he engaged himself in severe austerities in adoration and devotion of Shreeom. Finally because of such great devotion Shreeom appeared as a Vishnu and blessed Dhurba. Knowing this, Shreeom affectionately touched his cheek and his body with hand, was the seed of all sound and solving of all the problems of Dhruba. Shreeom had been provided all the necessary knowledge of the world to Dhurba . He then sang Shreeom Vishnu praise, having been purified and enlightened by Shreeom's touch. After many years Dhurba and his mother and father entered the region called Dhruva-loka and lived there joyfully even now as the Pole Star, the Dhruva Tara. That story is about thousands of years ago. Now again in this time Shreeom Vishnu is on earth as a human form with Sankha and Chakra and many Gods and Goddess, Brahmas, Devis, father's and mother's soul all the time, fortunate male and female divinity and Sadhus, Santas, Pandits, scientists and presidents and prime ministers of every nations, kings and queens, pure and Knowledgeable existence are with Shreeom.

Everyone reading this must believe me when I say Prince possessed genius. Unprecedented genius. Think back to Elvis, the cat some folk say invented rock and roll. Elvis was cool. Elvis had a look. He sang. Worked his pelvis. Drove the girls crazy. Would never dis Elvis for borrowing from black music 'cause he publicly acknowledged his masters. He loved him some B.B. King. He respected Ray Charles. He covered Ray's songs. But if they call Elvis the King, they're gonna have to call Prince the World Emperor. I say that cause, unlike Prince, Elvis did not write. Elvis did not arrange. Elvis did not play killer guitar. And when I say that Prince wrote and arranged, I mean he wrote and arranged literally thousands of songs under so many different names that he forgot half of them. And when I say Prince played guitar, I mean he blended the styles of all the guitar gurus and then added a fantastic flair all his own. He did more than arrange. He created a sound that, nearly half a century later, sounds as fresh as it did when Grand Central was tearing the roofs of every school auditorium in the Twin Cities.

His gaze held hers, making Emma feel as if she was the most beautiful and most loved woman in the world. Tonight he even sang, his deep voice joining Nat King Cole’s in professing her unforgettable as they danced beneath the moonlight. It was magical. He was magical. “I’m so in love with you,” she murmured. Smiling, he swiveled slightly and lowered her in a gentle dip. “You’re the love of my life, Emma.” She had never been happier than in that moment.

God damn it, you sang, in your chains, for every thief crucified, for every King and X hash-hashinated, for every Shepard hung by butcher birds from the wire, for every whole note hung by its rope from the score... gnashing lies till they were dead, shaking the lies’ bodies to be sure they did not twitch

Her husband rode at the head of the party. He did not ride beside her, or speak to her or look at her, even when at last they arrived at the abbey. They were fed a fine supper, and the minstrels sang, and all the while they sat like strangers to one another. But later, in the dark of the room that had been prepared for them, he reached for her again like a starving man.

When the poet sang me the fall of Troy, his story told of the king’s daughter Cassandra, who foresaw what would happen and tried to prevent the Trojans from letting the great horse into the city, but no one would listen to her: it was a curse laid on her, to see the truth and say it and not be heard. It is a curse laid on women more often than on men. Men want the truth to be theirs, their discovery and property. My father did not hear me.

La pierre est rouge, bien sûr. Rouge comme le sang, rouge comme le feu. Rouge comme la colère qui nous ronge tous les deux.

The beauty of life is its sudden changes. No one knows what is going to happen next, and so we are constantly being surprised and entertained. The many ups and downs should not discourage us, for if we are down, we know that a change is coming and we will go up again; while those who are up are almost certain to go down. My grandfather had a song which well expresses this and if you will listen I will sing it." "Of course I will listen to your song," returned Kitticut, "for it would be impolite not to." So Rinkitink sang his grandfather's song: "A mighty King once ruled the land—      But now he's baking pies. A pauper, on the other hand,      Is ruling, strong and wise. A tiger once in jungles raged—      But now he's in a zoo; A lion, captive-born and caged,      Now roams the forest through. A man once slapped a poor boy's pate      And made him weep and wail. The boy became a magistrate      And put the man in jail. A sunny day succeeds the night;      It's summer—then it snows! Right oft goes wrong and wrong comes right,      As ev'ry wise man knows.

All this blackness was within him, but that was where it really mattered. It was night without moon or stars, it was a doorless pit in the earth's bowels, it was forever. He felt black ice growing, blooming in his veins. One last sharp feeling was left to him--the bitter taste of failure. Then that went too. All was nothing. Cold and everlasting night, and an everlasting laughter that was older and colder than the stars he would never see again. His heart squirmed wildly in his chest, seeking an escape that was denied it. Laughter like a glacier came again, rolling and crushing all else before it. A bird sang.

Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air … and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” “Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire.

In the little village of Bethlehem, There lay a Child one day; And the sky was bright with a holy light O’er the place where Jesus lay. ’Twas a humble birthplace, but O how much God gave to us that day, From the manger bed what a path has led, What a perfect, holy way. Alleluia! O how the angels sang. Alleluia! How it rang! And the sky was bright with a holy light ’Twas the birthday of a King.

J. Edgerton/ The Spirit of Christmas Page 17 Continued JONAS AND JAMES (SINGING) “O come all ye faithful. Joyful and triumphant. O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold him. Born the king of angels. O come let us adore him. O come let us adore him. O come let us adore him. Christ the lord.” “Sing, choirs of angels, Sing in exultations. Sing, all ye citizens of heavn above; Glory to god, Glory in the highest. O come let us adore him. O come let us adore him. O come let us adore him, Christ the lord!” An occasional passer-by dropped a coin into the cup held by the littlest Nicholas. Thorn tipped his hat to them, trying to keep his greedy looks to a minimum. “Sing loudly my little scalawags. We’ve only a few blocks to go of skullduggery. Then you’ll have hot potato soup before a warm fire.” The Nicholas boys sang louder as they shivered from the falling snow and the wind that seemed to cut right through their shabby clothes, to their very souls. A wicked smile spread over the face of the villainous Mr. Thorn, as he heard the clink of a coin topple into the cup. “That’s it little alley muffins, shiver more it’s good for business.” His evil chuckle automatically followed and he had to stifle it. They trudged on, a few coins added to the coffer from smiling patrons. J. Edgerton/ The Spirit of Christmas Page 18 Mr. Angel continued to follow them unobserved, darting into a doorway as Mr. Thorn glanced slyly behind him, like a common criminal but there was nothing common about him. They paused before the Gotham Orphanage that rose up with its cold stone presence and its’ weathered sign. Thorn’s deep voice echoed as ominous as the sight before them, “Gotham Orphanage, home sweet home! A shelter for wayward boys and girls and a nest to us all!” He slyly drew a coin from his pocket, and twirled it through his fingers. Weather faced Thorn then bit down on the rusty coin, to make sure that it was real. He then deposited all of the coin into the inner pocket of his coat, with an evil chuckle. IV. “GOTHAM ORPHANAGE” “Now never you mind about the goings on of my business. You just mind your own. Now off with ya. Get into the hall to prepare for dinner, such as it is,” Thorn’s words echoed behind them. “And not a word to anyone of my business or you’ll see the back of me hand.” He pushed the boy toward the dingy stone building that was their torment and their shelter. The tall Toymaker glanced after them and then trod cautiously towards Gotham Orphanage. Jonas and James paced along the cracked stone pathway and up the front steps of the main entryway, that towered in cold stone before them. Thorn ushered the boys through the weathered front door to Gotham’s Orphanage. Mr. Angel paced after them and paused, unobserved, near the entrance. As they trudged across the worn hard wood floors of Gotham Orphanage, gala Irish music was heard coming from the main hall of building. Thorn herded the boys into the main hall of the orphanage that was filled with every size and make of both orphan boys and girls seated quietly at tables, eating their dinner. Then he turned with an evil look and hurriedly headed down the long hallway with the money they’ve earned. Jonas and James paced hungrily through the main hall, before a long table with a large, black kettle on top of it and loaves of different types of bread. They both glanced back at a small makeshift stage where orphans in shabby clothes sat stone faced with instruments, playing an Irish Christmas Ballad. Occasionally a sour note was heard. At a far table sat Men and Women of the Community who had come to have dinner and support the orphanage. In front of them was a small, black kettle with a sign that said “Donations”.

Si vous ne voulez lire qu'un seul livre sur la bataille de Little Bighorn, je vous recommande Son of the Morning Star d'Evan Connell. L'auteur ne fait grâce à personne, Peau-Rouge ou visage pâle. Il a compris, lui, que l'enjeu de la bataille n'était pas la fierté nationale d'une nation émergente ou la recherche de la gloire personnelle. Il s'agissait seulement de tuer son prochain. Il a compris que, dès que commence la tuerie, que ce soit dans la plaine du Montana ou le désert de l'Irak, tout le monde se retrouve avec du sang sur les mains.

Angelina, I adore you...," crooned Louis. Then the New Orleans Gang picked up the beat and King Louis sang, "I eat antipasto twice, just because she is so nice, Angelina..." Fresh pasta time. Angelina cracked three eggs into the center of a mound of 00 flour, in time to the music, and began teasing the flour into the sticky center. With a hand-cranked pasta maker, she rolled out the dough into long, silky-thin sheets, laid them out until they covered the entire table, then used a 'mezza luna' to carefully slice wide strips of pasta for a new dish she wanted to try that she called Lasagna Provencal, a combination of Italian and French cheeses, Roma and sun-dried tomatoes, Herbes de Provence, and fresh basil. It was a recipe for which she had very high hopes. Angelina started assembling her lasagna. She mixed creamy Neufchatel, ricotta, and a sharp, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano in with a whole egg to bind it together. She layered fresh pasta sheets in a lasagna dish, coated them with the cheesy mixture, ripped in some fresh basil and oregano and sun-dried tomatoes. She worked quickly, but with iron concentration. "I'm-a just a gigolo, everywhere I go...," sang King Louie. For the second layer, she used more pasta topped with Gruyere and herbed Boursin cheese. The third layer was the same as the first. For the fourth layer, she used the rest of the Boursin and dollops of creme fraiche, then ladled the thick, rich tomato sauce from the stove on top and finished it with a sprinkling of shredded Gruyere. She set it aside for baking later and felt a flush of craftswomanly pride in the way it had all come together.

He rose and standing in the dark he began to chant in a deep voice, while the echoes ran away into the roof. The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin’s Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep. ‘I

1963 March on Washington. Mahalia Jackson sang a triumphant “How I Got Over,” recalling the storefront singer of her youth and not the officious matriarch of national television. But she did more than set the crowd up for Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech. When Dr. King’s first paragraphs didn’t excite, the showman in Mahalia instructed her to go with the hits. “Martin, tell them about the dream,” she kept repeating until he got the message. Without her insistence, America would not have heard his most famous words.

by refusing to repeat it, much to the despair of their record companies. Both wrote gorgeous sci-fi ballads blatantly inspired by 2001—“Space Oddity” and “After the Gold Rush.” Both did classic songs about imperialism that name-checked Marlon Brando—“China Girl” and “Pocahontas.” Both were prodigiously prolific even when they were trying to eat Peru through their nostrils. They were mutual fans, though they floundered when they tried to copy each other (Trans and Tin Machine). Both sang their fears of losing their youth when they were still basically kids; both aged mysteriously well. Neither ever did anything remotely sane. But there’s a key difference: Bowie liked working with smart people, whereas Young always liked working with . . . well, let’s go ahead and call them “not quite as smart as Neil Young” people. Young made his most famous music with two backing groups—the awesomely inept Crazy Horse and the expensively addled CSN—whose collective IQ barely leaves room temperature. He knows they’re not going to challenge him with ideas of their own, so he knows how to use them—brilliantly in the first case, lucratively in the second. But Bowie never made any of his memorable music that way—he always preferred collaborating with (and stealing from) artists who knew tricks he didn’t know, well educated in musical worlds where he was just a visitor. Just look at the guitarists he worked with: Carlos Alomar from James Brown’s band vs. Robert Fripp from King Crimson. Stevie Ray Vaughan from Texas vs. Mick Ronson from Hull. Adrian Belew from Kentucky vs. Earl Slick from Brooklyn. Nile Rodgers. Peter Frampton. Ricky Gardiner, who played all that fantastic fuzz guitar on Low (and who made the mistake of demanding a raise, which is why he dropped out of the story so fast). Together, Young and Bowie laid claim to a jilted generation left high and dry by the dashed hippie dreams. “The

Past the woodshed, past the creek that ran behind our inn, deep in the wild heart of the forest, was a circle of alder trees we called the Goblin Grove. The trees grew in such a way as to suggest twisted arms and monstrous limbs frozen in an eternal dance, and Constanze liked to tell us that the trees had once been humans- naughty young women- who displeased Der Erlkönig. As children we had played here, Josef and me, played and sang and danced, offering our music to the Lord of Mischief. The Goblin King was the silhouette around which my music was composed, and the Goblin Grove was the place my shadows came to life. I spied a scarlet shape in the woods ahead of me. Käthe in my cloak, walking to my sacred space. An irrational, petty slash of irritation cut through my dread and unease. The Goblin Grove was my haunt, my refuge, my sanctuary. Why must she take everything that was mine? My sister had a gift for turning the extraordinary into the ordinary. Unlike my brother and me- who lived in the ether of magic and music- Käthe lived in the world of the real, the tangible, the mundane. Unlike us, she never had faith.

The hope of Israel, the anointed Messiah, one that was hanged!” Saul said with withering scorn. “He who will come on the clouds, attended by the heavenly legions, who will harvest the nations of the world and lay them like sheaves at his feet! He of whom King David sang: ‘In a little while I shall make the nations of the world a footstool for thy feet!” He whom God has appointed as a light unto the peoples! He, the chosen one of God, who was with Him before the creation of the world! How could he allow the gentiles to slaughter him like a sheep, and  not call the heavenly hosts to his rescue?” “But did you not hear the man quote from the Prophet Isaiah: ‘He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.’ And, ‘for the sins of my people was he stricken, and he made his grave with the wicked.’ Not because he did evil—God forbid!—was he punished, but he freely took himself our sins; he bore our sickness, and was smitten with our transgressions.” “You mean...?” asked the young man of Tarshish and stopped again for a moment, keeping his eye sternly on his friend. “I—I personally do not mean anything. But I do say that the words of the Galileans have put many thoughts into my mind.” There

A three-day-old baby is a saint?' Willibald flapped his hands. 'Miracles happen, lord,' he said, 'they really do. They say little Rumwold sang God's praises whenever he suckled.' 'I feel much the same when I get hild of a tit,' I said, 'so does that make me a saint?

Then she sang:   Dumbarton’s drums beat bonnie O, When they mind me of my dear Johnnie O! How happy am I When my soldier is by, While he kisses and blesses his Annie O! Tis a soldier alone can delight me O, For his graceful looks do invite me O! While guarded in his arms I’ll fear no war’s alarms, Neither danger nor death shall e’er fright me O!   My love is a handsome laddie O, Genteel, but ne’er foppish or gaudy O! Though commissions are dear, Yet I’ll buy him one this year, For he’ll serve no longer a cadie O! A soldier has honor and bravery O, Unacquainted with rogues and their knavery O! He minds no other thing But the ladies or the king, For every other care is but slavery O!   Then I’ll be the captain’s lady O! Farewell, all my friends and my daddy O! I’ll wait no more at home, But I’ll follow with the drum, And whene’er that beats I’ll be ready O! Dumbarton’s drums sound bonnie O! They are sprightly like my dear Johnnie O! How happy I shall be When on my soldier’s knee, And he kisses and blesses his Annie O!

But here’s the thing: Martin Luther King was not the “MLK” of his time, not the “MLK” of legend. Martin Luther King was public enemy number one. Seen as an even greater threat by our government, and a large portion of society, than Malcolm X was. Because what Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X fought for was the same: freedom from oppression. At times they used different words and different tactics, but it was their goal that was the threat. Their goal of freedom from racial oppression was and is a direct threat to the system of White Supremacy. And for all of Martin’s actions of peace and love, he was targeted with violence, harassed, arrested, blackmailed, followed by the FBI, and eventually murdered. For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America. Martin was the black man who asked for too much, too loudly. Martin was why white America couldn’t support equality. Because no matter what we ask for, if it threatens the system of White Supremacy, it will always be seen as too much. When we were slaves nursing their babies, we were not nice enough. When we were maids cleaning their homes we were not nice enough. When we were porters shining their shoes we were not nice enough. And when we danced and sang for their entertainment we were not nice enough. For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue, that our humanity must be earned. We simply don’t deserve equality yet. So when people say that they don’t like my tone, or when they say they can’t support the “militancy” of Black Lives Matter, or when they say that it would be easier if we just didn’t talk about race all the time—I ask one question: Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you believe in justice and equality you believe in it all of the time, for all people. You believe in it for newborn babies, you believe in it for single mothers, you believe in it for kids in the street, you believe in justice and equality for people you like and people you don’t. You believe in it for people who don’t say please. And if there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don’t deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place. Yes, I am a Malcolm. And Martin, and Angela, Marcus, Rosa, Biko, Baldwin, Assata, Harriet, and Nina. I’m fighting for liberation. I’m filled with righteous anger and love. I’m shouting, as all before me have in their way. And I’m a human being who was born deserving justice and equality, and that is all you should need to know in order to stand by my side.

Clever bird, clever man, clever clever fool,” said Patchface, jangling. “Oh, clever clever clever fool.” He began to sing. “The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord,” he sang, hopping from one foot to the other and back again. “The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord.” He jerked his head with each word, the bells in his antlers sending up a clangor.

Later on, Orpheus stood beside the hearth fire in the center of the hall and sang about the day’s adventure. On his lips, the northern raiders were transformed from swift, deadly riders to winged and taloned monsters, part hawk, part woman. Because they could fly so high that spears and arrows couldn’t reach them, only men with the blood of the gods in their veins could end the havoc they caused. Luckily, a ship of heroes came ashore to rid the land of the hideous creatures. Zetes and Kalais, the sons of Boreas, had inherited the North Wind’s ability to fly and soon defeated the Harpies. They would trouble good Lord Phineas no more. Orpheus finished his song, and the men cheered and banged their fists on the tables so loudly that it seemed like they’d bring the roof down in pieces. As for me, I kept my mouth shut and my arms folded. Orpheus noticed my frosty look when he sat back down. “You didn’t like it,” he murmured. “They deserved better,” I replied stiffly. “They were brave fighters.” “I thought I made that clear. Just look at Zetes over there, grinning ear to ear in spite of a nasty arrow wound that probably still burns like Hephaestus’s own forge-fires. It might leave him half lame for life, but he won’t mind, because in my song, he owns the sky.” “You didn’t see the way he fought today,” I shot back. “He’s not worthy to own a mud puddle. They fought well, those women. They were as skilled and courageous as any man, so you turned them into monsters!” Orpheus was silent for a little while. Then he took a sip of wine and said, “They attacked without warning, they destroyed good ships for the sake of destruction, they violated the sanctity of a sacrifice to the gods, and they would have cut down a blind old man, king or not, if we hadn’t come ashore when we did. I won’t argue with you about their valor or their mastery of weapons and horses, but see them for what they are, lad. You say I’ve made them monsters, yet you’d make them gods. They’re women, human women, as praiseworthy and as flawed as any fighting men I’ve ever known, but plain truth makes a poor song.

King Karl sent his own musicians and minstrels to entertain at the wedding feast. The first night they sang the song they had written about the epic love between the Margrave of Thornbeck and his clever and courageous wife, Avelina.

IT WAS CHRISTMAS night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boars’ heads with the tusks stuck in again—when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be unemployed—when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm, and the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air. Such marvels were great and comfortable ones. But in the Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself. In the spring, the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang. In the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed. In the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory. And in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush.

I could see that Bukka was born to be a bluesman, and I wondered if the same was true of me. I worried that I didn't have his talent - or the talent of someone like Blind Lemon or T-Bone. I felt something beautiful inside Bukka's soul. Even if I didn't follow his style, I was moved by his sincerity. He loved telling stories, and used his blues to tell them. His blues was the book of his life. He sang about his rough times and fast time and loving times and angry times. He'd entertain at a party for two hundred people with the same enthusiasm as a party for twenty. Bukka gave it his all. His music had a consistency I admired. Like all the great bluesmen, he said, I am what I am. I wondered if I could be that steady and strong.

Curious, Amy asked Absalom how anarchists celebrated the holidays. The girl explained her family exchanged radical pamphlets and gelignite recipes while dining on a roast swan her father had specifically poached from a royal estate. Instead of carols around a tree, they sang revolutionary songs in front of a fire into which they threw straw dollies made in the image of kings, presidents, colossi of finance and secret police chiefs. Absalom and her sisters nibbled biscuits decorated with red sugar stars and slogans of the struggle.

Have what you want, king," she sang at him. And then she threw something right at him.

Yeah, and they sang ‘Rat-Boy Is Our King,’ too.” Sandy laughed. “Is that really what you think people do at private school? You read too much Harry Potter.” She shoved him. “Don’t mock the Potter.” “Okay,

Hours later, the King of Adarlan stood at the back of the dungeon chamber as his secret guards dragged Rena Goldsmith forward. The butcher’s block at the center of the room was already soaked with blood. Her companion’s headless corpse lay a few feet away, his blood trickling toward the drain in the floor. Perrington and Roland stood silent beside the king, watching, waiting. The guards shoved the singer to her knees before the stained stone. One of them grabbed a fistful of her red-gold hair and yanked, forcing her to look at the king as he stepped forward. “It is punishable by death to speak of or to encourage magic. It is an affront to the gods, and an affront to me that you sang such a song in my hall.” Rena Goldsmith just stared at him, her eyes bright. She hadn’t struggled when his men grabbed her after the performance or even screamed when they’d beheaded her companion. As if she’d been expecting this. “Any last words?” A queer, calm rage settled over her lined face, and she lifted her chin. “I have worked for ten years to become famous enough to gain an invitation to this castle. Ten years, so I could come here to sing the songs of magic that you tried to wipe out. So I could sing those songs, and you would know that we are still here—that you may outlaw magic, that you may slaughter thousands, but we who keep the old ways still remember.” Behind him, Roland snorted. “Enough,” the king said, and snapped his fingers. The guards shoved her head down on the block. “My daughter was sixteen,” she went on. Tears ran over the bridge of her nose and onto the block, but her voice remained strong and loud. “Sixteen, when you burned her. Her name was Kaleen, and she had eyes like thunderclouds. I still hear her voice in my dreams.” The king jerked his chin to the executioner, who stepped forward. “My sister was thirty-six. Her name was Liessa, and she had two boys who were her joy.” The executioner raised his ax. “My neighbor and his wife were seventy. Their names were Jon and Estrel. They were killed because they dared try to protect my daughter when your men came for her.” Rena Goldsmith was still reciting her list of the dead when the ax fell.

Bing Crosby is said to have told a story about one of his sons at the age of six or so who was inconsolable when his pet turtle died. To distract the boy, Bing suggested that they have a funeral, and his son, seeming only slightly consoled, agreed. The two took a cigar box, lined it carefully with silk, painted the outside black, and then dug a hole in the back yard. Bing carefully lowered the “coffin” into the grave, said a long, heartfelt prayer, and sang a hymn. At the end of the service, the boy’s eyes were shining with sorrow and excitement. Then Bing asked if he would like to have one last look at his pet before they covered the coffin with earth. The boy said he would, and Bing raised the cigar-box lid. The two gazed down reverently, and suddenly the turtle moved. The boy stared at it for a long time, then looked up at his father and said, “Let’s kill it.”15