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Old 04-13-2004, 04:39 PM   #169
Nurumaiel
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Join Date: Nov 2002
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Shield Posts for Liornung

littlemanpoet, I've worked out a couple posts. It would do me a great honor if you placed them below two posts of your own which I have specified. They are as follows:

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under your post #82......
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"The tale of it?" Liornung blushed slightly but it was clear he was more than eager to tell. "What you have said is true... the Bards of Rohan have rarely put rhyme in their verse and their great songs have been sung without. Yet I learned the art of song not from one of Rohan but from a wandering minstrel of Gondor who always sang in rhyme. Indeed, this fiddle is his that he left me, and 'twas he who first named me Liornung. The name my mother and father gave to me is Sarig, but I do forbid anyone to call me thus." And, a twinkle in his eye, he looked at each member of the company in turn.

"Yes, indeed, it is a name to avoid! But as I was saying before, it was that wandering minstrel who brought me to sing in rhyme. He sang for me a lovely song. He was not as I am. You see, he had a lover in Gondor waiting for him, and I have never fallen in love and don't fully intend to. He was fair eight and thirty years when he first passed through my land and stayed at my father's home, when I was but a lad. He spoke to me a little of her, calling her fairest and dearest, her heart the sweetest and kindest, and though I daresay now all say so much of their lover's, as Amroth would surely say of his, I have rarely seen a man love as that minstrel loved his Gondor maid. He would often describe her to me in a verse, saying:

"Dear are her charms to me,
dearer her laughter free,
dearest her constancy.


"She was of Rohan though he had brought her to Gondor to wait for him at his mother's home. He would have married her long before that time but he could not bring himself to lay aside his roaming just yet. He did tell me once, however, that two years forward he would abandon all roads, build a little home, and take her for his wife. I have not heard of him since, but I pray the two of them are happily wed." He paused a moment before continuing, and his voice was quieter when he spoke again. "Once I heard him singing a song he had written to her, though he did not know I was closeby. It was a charming little song, very simple, but full of such love and devotion. I heard it only once yet it has ever been in my mind. It ran thus:

"Do you see yon bonnie minstrels as they go along
a-trippin' and a-skippin' to the lilt of their song?
And, lassie, they sing a song for thee
so jump up, bonnie girl, and come away with me.


A minstrel's fare is poor if his songs do not please
but if hunger faced us I should love you 'fore life ceased
and with my dying breath I would take you on my knee
and I would tell you truly how much I loved thee.


But if my songs should pleased and bring us some food
still I'd love you as ever a man could
and I'd play you a tune 'neath some shady tree.
So jump up, bonnie girl, and come away with me.


And if there came children a home they should not lack.
I'd set aside my songs and take my fiddle from my back
and I should love them however many there may be.
So jump up, bonnie girl, and come away with me.


And when, my darling girl, we are both frail and old
and your hair turned to white and lost its lovely gold,
though youth had with time decayed still I would love thee.
So jump up, bonnie girl, and come along with me.


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under your post #87
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Liornung's eyes travelled over the campsite and he nodded in satisfaction. "'Tis a lovely place to camp, and I am amazed at the feel of the very air, which speaks of Éomer and his company even better than the song you have sung, good Ædegard. I do not mean, of course," he added, his voice hasty and confused, "that the song was not worthy of the place."

"I do think you are correct," Ædegard reassured him. "Not all things can be put into song. The song spoke of this place, yet this place is this place."

"That is," Liornung said, "quite right." He picked up his fiddle with a little smile upon his face. "I'm going to sing a happy little song for you. I have sung too much, I fear, of lost loves and faraway loves and longing loves, things that bring woe and sorrow. What about loves that are there and happily content?" And so he picked up a merry tune and began to sing.

Come all you lads and lassies and listen for awhile.
I'll sing to you a verse or two and try to make you smile.
But if instead you weep with grief, do not be ashamed
for others who have heard this song wept, more than can be named.


Fal-la-do-la-do, fal-al-the-day.

There was lad who rode out one fair and pleasant day.
From Rohan and to Gondor he carelessly did stray.
He had no mind for love or any lassies fair
till he met a maid, soft was her smile, dark was her hair.


Fal-la-do-la-do, fal-al-the-day.

"Oh lassie fair of Gondor, do come away with me,
mount your horse and take my hand and come to my country.
I'll give you all you wish for and sweet home
and rover though I am for you I'll cease to roam.


Fal-la-do-la-do, fal-al-the-day.

"Oh lad with the golden hair, truly I love you
but if I went away what would my poor sick father do?"
"Oh take him lassie, take him if you'll come with me.
I'll give you all you ask for, no want will come to ye.


Fal-la-do-la-do, fal-al-the-day.

The lad left and the lassie followed with her father ill.
They built a house and she truly loved him with a will.
I've told you a happy tale of a young rover
and how he won the heart of the fair maid of Gondor.


Fal-la-do-la-do, fal-al-the-day.
Fal-la-do-la-dee-la-fal-do-lay.

As he ended his song he threw back his head and laughed. "Before any of you speak of it, I do know that my songs are often of wandering rovers and their fair maids, but in all truth so seldom am I in one place for a long time that the only romances I know of are those of the road. Yet I do know of a poor peasant lad who married a poor peasant lass he had loved all his life. I will put the tale into verse a sing it for you on the morrow."

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Thank ye kindly!
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