don't challenge the Wise Singer

[incandescens]

Weather still grey and cool.

For some reason I'm having urges to reread my John Dickson Carr / Carter Dickson collection. I'm not sure why. Actually, to be honest, it's more urges to read the short stories and the last few chapters of the books, to enjoy the drama of the resolutions and the neatness of planning of the cunning murder plots.

Plus the man wrote excellent description and pacing. I am paying attention.

---

The old Vainamoinen sang:
the lakes rippled, the earth shook
the copper mountains trembled
the sturdy boulders rumbled
the cliffs flew in two
the rocks cracked upon the shores.
He sang young Joukahainen -
saplings on his collar-bow
a willow shrub on his hames
goat willows on his trace-tip
sang his gold-trimmed sleigh
sang it to treetrunks in pools
sang his whip knotted with beads
to reeds on a shore
sang his blaze-browed horse
to rocks on a rapid's bank;
he sang his gold-hilted sword
to lightnings in heaven
then his bright-butted crossbow
to rainbows upon waters
and then his feathered arrows
to swift-flying hawks
and then his dog of hooked jaw
to rocks on the ground;
he sang the cap off his head
to a piled-up bank of cloud
sang the mittens off his hands
to lilies on a still pool
then his blue cloth coat
to vapours in heaven
from his waist the fine-wove belt
to stars across heaven;
he sang him, Joukahainen
in a swamp up to his waist
in a meadow to his groin
in the heath to his armpits.

-- The Kalevala, translated by Keith Bosley

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

All the locked door and obscure physics things in Carr put me off, so I can understand wanting to read just the endings. I'd sort of like to reread his time-travelling mysteries. (Surely there was more than one? even if I can only remember Fire, Burn?) The sexual attitudes are wince-worthy, but I remember them fondly from my parents' library.

[incandescens]

There were several time-travel ones, or ones with a historical setting: IIRC, they included Fire, Burn!, The Devil in Velvet, The Witch of the Low Tide, The Demoniacs, and Captain Cut-Throat, though there may have been others.

(Admittedly my memory is sharpened by having been trawling along my bookshelf lately.)

The sexual -- and racial, too, I'm afraid -- attitudes are definitely a product of the time, even if he does allow some of the girls to be plucky and brave. But... well. It's as you say. I remember them fondly. I assembled a lot of my collection while I was still in my teens or shortly afterwards. I think this should be better, but... I'm still fond.