The Ballad of the Jew's Daughter

One of my favorite folk songs goes like this (sorry, I can't find a recording):

As I walked out one holiday,


The flakes of snow did fall,

And all the children in the school


Were out a-playing ball.

A little boy threw his ball so high,

He threw his ball so low,


He threw it in a dusky garden


Among the blades of snow.

Out came the neighbor’s youngest daughter


All dressed in fairy green.


“Come in, come in, my lad,” she said,


“You may have your ball again.”

She took him by his little white arm,

and led him through the hall

She took him in a little dark room,

where no one could hear him call.

She sat him down in a golden chair

She fed him with sugar and sweet

She laid him down on a dusty board,

And stabbed him like a sheep.

Pray put my Bible at my head,

My prayer-book at my feet,

And if any of my playmates should call for me,

Pray tell them I'm dead and asleep.

Some take hold of locks of hair

And others the soles of his feet

And drag him down in a deep dry-well

Fifteen fathoms deep.

Some take hold of locks of hair

And others the sole of his feet

And drag him down in a deep dry-well

Where weary travelers sleep.

I love that the murder is so completely unmotivated here. Is she angry about the ball? Is she a serial killer? Is she a fairy or a witch (that sinister green)? And who are the mysterious “others” who show up to get rid of the body?

Recently, reading Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (which I recommend to anyone interested in the history of English poetry) I found that the original of this song is much less mysterious. The “lady” is a Jew's daughter, and naturally she kills the child because she hates Christians and wants their blood. The song is based on the historical case of a 13th-century child murder which was blamed on a dozen of (coincidentally) the richest Jews in England and supposedly witnessed by ALL the Jews in England. Here's the original, and although too explicit for my taste, it has some lovely cruel parts. 

 

The rain rins doun through Mirry-land toune,
Sae dois it doune the Pa;
Sae dois the lads of Mirry-land toune,
Whan they play at the ba.

Than out and cam the Jewis dochter,
Says, Will ye cum in and dine?
'I winnae cum in, I cannae cum in,
Without my play-feres nine.'

Scho powd an apple reid and white,
To intice the young thing in:
Scho powd an apple white and reid,
And that the sweit bairne did win.

And scho has taine out a little pen-knife,
And low down by her gair;
Scho has twin'd the yong thing and his life,
A word he nevir spak mair.

And out and cam the thick, thick bluid,
And out and cam the thin,
And out and cam the bonny herts bluid;
Thair was nae life left in.

Scho laid him on a dressing-borde,
And drest him like a swine,
And laughing said, Gae nou and pley
With your sweit play-feres nine.

Scho rowd him in a cake of lead,
Bade him lie stil and sleip;
Scho cast him in a deip draw-well,
Was fifty fadom deip.

Whan bells wer rung, and mass was sung,
And every lady went hame,
Than ilka lady had her yong sonne,
Bot Lady Helen had nane.

Scho rowd hir mantil hir about,
And sair, sair gan she weip,
And she ran into the Jewis castel,
Whan they wer all asleip.

'My bonny Sir Hew, my pretty Sir Hew,
I pray thee to me speik:'
'O lady, rinn to the deip draw-well,
Gin ye your sonne wad seik.'

Lady Helen ran to the deip draw-well,
And knelt upon her kne:
'My bonny Sir Hew, an ye be here,
I pray thee speik to me.'

'The lead is wondrous heavy, mither,
The well is wondrous deip;
A keen pen-knife sticks in my hert,
A word I dounae speik.

'Gae hame, gae hame, my mither deir,
Fetch me my windling sheet,
And at the back o Mirry-land toun,
It's thair we twa sall meet.'

When I was kidnapped, they took away my books. If you know me, you'll understand how bad this was. What do people do with free time, without books? Within a few weeks, I talked my therapist into letting me have a copy of the Bible. I figured they couldn't refuse, because religion, and although the therapist was well aware I was not a believer, he was, and must have figured it would be good for me.

The Bible I was given was a thick, cheap paperback, and after a month or so tumbling around in my hiking backpack and being read while I was in my sleeping bag on the desert ground, the pages were folded and dirty and the cover came off. So, when I went to my boarding school, they wouldn't let me keep it. I tried playing the "but it's the Bible!" card, but it didn't work. They said I could have another Bible, but I couldn't have this one, because it didn't look nice. I never got another Bible.

The Whedon Effect

Why is it that male feminists so often treat women badly? What they're thinking: I have the right beliefs, therefore I'm the good guy, therefore I can rest on my laurels and pay no attention to how I treat the actual women in my life.

"I'm pro-choice (and I swear not just because it leads to more sex)." "Okay, let's have sex. Do you have a condom?" Of course not. He doesn't like condoms. I guess I can get an abortion. And pay for it myself. 

His feminism means asserting his dominance over non-feminist men. It doesn't mean that he feels any heightened obligation to women, or that he even bothers to notice women's feelings. Examples: the male feminist who proposed an open relationship to me, where "open" would mean he got to have sex with anyone he wanted, and I got to have sex with...him. Or the one who somewhat horrifyingly told me he knew I wanted to have sex with him because of the color of my dress. Isn't that...rape culture? I did want to have sex with him, but that's irrelevant.

What if, instead of going around knowing you have the socially acceptable beliefs, you knew you had the wrong beliefs? What attitude would you have? My theory is that this might inspire you to be more careful and courteous with others. You can't assume you're the good guy, you have to prove it. This is the type of guy I've had success with. Of course, an alternative theory is that non-feminist men are actually motivated by chivalry more than courtesy, so that I am benefiting from the kind of sexism I object to. 

Rating Ulysses

Do we rate Ulysses S Grant as a poor president, because he was incompetent, drunk and, if not corrupt, tolerated corruption, or as a good president, because he said the right things about race?

His early military career showed flashes of brilliance before he resigned from a post in California amid accusations, almost certainly justified, of drunkenness. He then failed at various business ventures, a lifelong tendency that accompanied a penchant for trusting swindlers. Not long before the civil war he was virtually broke, walking the streets of St Louis in shabby clothing selling firewood.

I may be more comfortable with my flaws than most. When told, "X company is better than most because they filter out the assholes," I thought, oh, I shouldn't apply there. They don't like people like me.

Carlyle's Vocabulary

Word	Definition
culminant	Of a heavenly body: That has reached its greatest altitude, that is on the meridian; hence fig. that is at its greatest height.
whinstone	A name for various very hard dark-coloured rocks or stones, as greenstone, basalt, chert, or quartzose sandstone.
shaveling	A contemptuous epithet for a tonsured ecclesiastic. (Very common in 16th and 17th c.)
fingent	Given to fashioning or moulding.
losel	A worthless person; a profligate, rake, scoundrel; in weaker sense, a ragamuffin, ne'er-do-well.
edacity	The quality of being edacious; capacity for eating; good appetite. or Corrosive quality, destructive power. Obs.
gulosity	Gluttony, greediness, voracity.
eleutheromaniac	one possessed by a mad zeal for freedom
fremescence	An incipient roaring.
fremescent	Murmuring, growing noisy.
grunsel	groundsel OR ground-sill
tripudiation	the action of dancing or leaping, esp. in token of joy or excitement; exultation.
weasand	The œsophagus or gullet.
obtest	To call upon in the name of something sacred; to charge solemnly, adjure; to beg earnestly, beseech, entreat, or implore (a person). Freq. with infinitive or that-clause as complement.
spontoon	A species of half-pike or halberd carried by infantry officers in the 18th century (from about 1740).
furibund	Furious, raging, mad.
scorine	????
bando	A public proclamation. Obs.
divulsive	Tending to tear apart or asunder.
handsel	To give (a person) a gift at the beginning of the year or day, on a birthday, etc., as a token of good luck. Also more generally: to give a gift on any occasion. Formerly also in ironic use: †to present or greet with something unwelcome (obs.).
scission	Division of a previously united body of people into mutually opposing parties; a split, a schism.
passe-partout	Originally: †a person who may go anywhere (obs.). Subsequently: a thing giving a person the right or opportunity to go anywhere; spec. a key that opens any or many doors, a master key; (occas.) a passport. Freq. in extended use and fig.
footling	Trivial, pointless; (of a person) that footles or trifles.
adust	Originally: affected with, or having a temperament determined by, adust humours (see sense 1a). In later use: having a melancholy character or appearance; gloomy; sallow. Obs. or That is in a dusty condition; covered in dust. or To burn, to scorch; to desiccate by exposing to strong heat. Also fig.
demit	trans. To send, put, or let down; to cause to descend; to lower.
phasis	esp. any particular aspect of a thing of varying appearances. Obs.
bob-miner	????
mittimus	Law. A warrant issued by a justice of the peace, etc., committing a person to custody. Now hist. exc. in U.S. or trans. To commit to prison by a warrant. Obs. rare.
apophthegm	A terse, pointed saying, embodying an important truth in few words; a pithy or sententious maxim.
brayed ware	a confusion for braided ware = damaged or faded goods;
epicedium	A funeral ode; a lament over a dead person. Also in figurative contexts.
ferula	The giant fennel or From the use of the fennel-stalk in Roman times: A cane, rod, or other instrument of punishment, esp. a flat piece of wood (see ferule n. 2); fig. school discipline.
abutment	The point at which something abuts upon something else; a point of junction or meeting; a boundary. Also: a property or piece of land that abuts upon another; a description or record of how one property abuts upon another.
escarpment	Geol. ‘The abrupt face or cliff of a ridge or hill range’ (Page). Also attrib.
hodden	Woollen cloth of a coarse quality such as used to be made by country weavers on their hand-looms.
door-rabbet	A piece of stone (or occasionally timber) cut and shaped so as to form one side of an opening in a wall and accommodate a door, gate, window, or chimney;
fugle	To cheat, trick.
glen	A mountain-valley, usually narrow and forming the course of a stream.
shackly	Shaky, rickety; ramshackle.
hobbledehoy	A youth at the age between boyhood and manhood, a stripling; esp. a clumsy or awkward youth.
wynd	A narrow street or passage turning off from a main thoroughfare; a narrow cross-street; a lane or alley.
gillies	An attendant on a Highland chief. Now hist.
forehanded	That has made provision for the future; in easy circumstances, ‘well-to-do’. Now only U.S.
puncheon	A tool or machine for stamping a design on an object or A short upright piece of timber in a wooden framing to provide stiffening or support; a supporting post, spec. a post supporting the roof in a coal mine. or A split log or rough piece of timber with one smoothed surface, used esp. for flooring and corduroy roads, and formerly for buildings;
cheval-de-frise	A defensive appliance of war, employed chiefly to check cavalry charges, and stop breaches; a large piece of Timber pierc'd, and travers'd with wooden Spikes, arm'd or pointed with Iron, five or six Foot long.

On being likable

It's occurred to me lately that some people like me. I don't mean people being friendly to me because they want to have sex with me, or because they're trying to be professional, or because they're generally friendly people. I think--and bear with me here--that some people actually enjoy my company for its own sake. So much of our socializing is somewhat forced--you hang out with people because they are in the same school, or workplace, or social group. I always thought that I was being tolerated as part of the group. But--maybe--not always?

This opens up whole new vistas for me. The best I generally expect of other people is that they will tolerate me if I am quiet and don't cause trouble. (Legacy of a childhood being told to talk more, and then told I was crazy when I talked.) What would it be like if I instead believed that there was a real possibility some people would enjoy being around me?

Deep question. I wish I had known this earlier. I've started reaching out to people a bit more as a result. A friend called me this morning and I called him right back. On the telephone!