Glimmering Nymph
Feb. 15th, 2021 09:17 pmIt was a long time since I last wrote here, and even longer since I posted a new filk song.
But it's time for Bellman, and in English! It even connects with the old Filk Tradition of doing relatively straight adaptions of Scandinavian ballads (see also: Mary O'Meara and A Flower and a Hufflepuff).
One of Bellman's most enduring songs is Fredman's Epistle n:o 72 (Youtube), commonly known by its opening words "Glimmande nymf". There is a translation to English by Paul Britten Austin, available on Spotify, but like many of his translations I think it removes too much of the gutter nature in Bellman.
Because this is very much a song about physical love and sex, and so it fit very well with the relentlessly smutty urban fantasy series Good Intentions by Elliott Kay. Then I realised that the events in the first version of epistle 72, written 19 years earlier (Youtube), and which is far more bawdy and comic, fit perfectly to a specific scene in the first book. Technically the song is thus a big spoiler, but the scene pretty much flies past and doesn't really play a big role in the larger narrative.
( Glimmering nymph: smoldering eyes )
But it's time for Bellman, and in English! It even connects with the old Filk Tradition of doing relatively straight adaptions of Scandinavian ballads (see also: Mary O'Meara and A Flower and a Hufflepuff).
One of Bellman's most enduring songs is Fredman's Epistle n:o 72 (Youtube), commonly known by its opening words "Glimmande nymf". There is a translation to English by Paul Britten Austin, available on Spotify, but like many of his translations I think it removes too much of the gutter nature in Bellman.
Because this is very much a song about physical love and sex, and so it fit very well with the relentlessly smutty urban fantasy series Good Intentions by Elliott Kay. Then I realised that the events in the first version of epistle 72, written 19 years earlier (Youtube), and which is far more bawdy and comic, fit perfectly to a specific scene in the first book. Technically the song is thus a big spoiler, but the scene pretty much flies past and doesn't really play a big role in the larger narrative.
( Glimmering nymph: smoldering eyes )