La Fille Damnee

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One of my new favourite artists is Cécile Corbel. Thanks to Ms Corbel, I think I am finally recovering from my hatred of the French language. Allow me to elaborate, living in the bilingual country of Canada, French is offered in school, and I was required to take it from grade 6 until the end of high school. I was not happy about this, and hence French has always been my enemy. Having been out of high school for some time now, I have had time to get over my dislike of the French language, just in time to enjoy the songs of Cécile.

Her instrument of choice is the harp, giving her songs a Celtic sound to them. She sings in both English and French. Her song “La Fille Damnee” is hauntingly beautiful. It is from her album, Songbook Vol 2. There is also a music video for the song, which can be found on YouTube (and I’ve posted it below). One of the things that irritated me about the comments for the video was that people kept asking for the lyrics and yet the lyrics were there in the comments section! This is why before you ask anything in a YouTube video check the video description and the comments section. Your question may have already have been answered. Such was the case in the music video for “La Fille Damnee”.

As for what the song is about, user PoirotAndCo (♥) explained in the comments: “Its the story about a [man] who goes to a blacksmith to shoe his horse. As the blacksmith starts working, the horse starts speaking with the voice of the man's dead daughter Jeanne. She tells her father that she was damned because she met every night with a strange man in the moor. She [begs] her father to take "her body, her heart and her dress", to burn them and to throw the ashes into the wind...”

User BugBug81 (♥) provided the French lyrics...

How to be a (Newfoundland) Fairy

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You want to be a fairy, do you? What sort of fairy? The beautiful ones found in literature or the tricky ones found in the hills? I am often caught off guard when people talk about fairies, saying they would like to be one, or that they find them beautiful, etc. I have to remind myself that there are different sorts of fairies, and people view them in different ways. Though I grew up in an area where there is not a fairy tradition, through my folklore classes, I have learned much about the fairy traditions that exist within my home province.

I wish to now give you a guide on how to be a particular type of fairy, a Newfoundland fairy. I got the idea for this entry after reading Ariel Grimm’s blog post How to Be a Real Fairy (Be sure to check out her website-blog, The Forest).

And so I give you the guide...

Have Yourself a Creepy Little Christmas

Fred Figglehorn of YouTube (link) (if you are unaware of who this is, then you may be in for a treat, or a headache), recently released a song called Christmas is Creepy (link), and I feel he is right. Christmas can indeed be creepy, especially in Newfoundland because in NL we have Mummers. What are Mummers you ask? Why they are the creepiest Christmas tradition I know of!

The Mummering tradition was brought to NL from England. The earlier form of mummering is the “mummers house visit”, which was most popular in Newfoundland in earlier years. Here in NL the tradition is that at Christmas time members of the community would disguise themselves and travel from house to house. These disguised citizen, the mummers, would act “out of character” until the home owners guessed their identities and the mummers were unmasked. If this does not sound the least unnerving to you, then you have more nerve than I.

The mummers will announce their arrival by not merely knocking but pounding upon your door at night, asking the question, in their odd way of speaking (inhaling as they speak) “Any mummers ‘loud in?”. Or they could substitute the word mummers for jannies, as they were called when my mom was a little girl. If let in the mummers would proceed to “act foolish”, as some might call it. They will drink and dance, only ceasing when their identities are revealed. There disguises are outrageous! To quote “The Mummers Song” by the group Simini, there will be “boys dressed as women and girls dressed as men”, “humps on their backs and mitts on their feet”, “…with his underwear stuffed and his trapdoor undone. Is he wearing his mother's big forty-two bra?” A mummer will make use of anything available to them to make a costume.

Here you can see the tradition in action, as show in this song by Simini, and for the lyrics, click here

The Mummers Song

What a treat this was for the people of rural NL who were the mummers. Living in tight knit communities where everyone knew everyone else so well, to be a stranger in your own community was surely an odd experience. And to be given occasion to break all the social norms, to act so out of characters, was also a treat.

Above in this blog post I mentioned that the earlier form of mummering is the "mummers house visit", a later version of this tradition is the “Mummers Play”. While not as popular, and to some NLers completely unknown, this is still performed in England. And of course, there are whole performances available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube!

Crook Morris Mummers Play 17th January 2009


Mummer's Play - Part 1 - Medieval Christmas Revels - Cambridge 1995


Mummer's Play - Part 2 - Medieval Christmas Revels - Cambridge 1995


Mummer's Play - Part 3 - Medieval Christmas Revels - Cambridge 1995

For more information on mummering in Newfoundland, please visit the following links:

Mummers Festival website (link)
When at the website be sure to click on the heading “Traditions” to learn more about Mummering and Janneying (link) and another creepy character, the Hobby Horse (link)

On Facebook be sure to join the Mummers Festival (Folklife Festival of Newfoundland and Labrador) (link)
Be sure to check out the Photos (link) from this year’s Mummers Festival!

I have very few memories of mummers. Though they frightened me and some of my friends as well, they do not mean to, at least that is not the point of the tradition, to scare people. Despite the use of Halloween masks, and the whole thing feeling more like something that should take place in October, mummers are not out to purposely scare you; they are a jolly sort who are merely having some fun.

I have so few memories of them because by the time I was born, the tradition was dying out, with good reason. Times have changed very much, and the thought of letting masked strangers into your home in the dead of night today may be a little more than unnerving for some. This is perhaps why the Mummers Festival got started (find out more about that in the links above!). It is a way of making a tradition safe again. And speaking of the festival, I was very sad when I found out that I would miss the Mummers parade. However, this being an annual festival, I shall be attending next year!

For some it is still very much a part of their Christmas memories. It may very well not seem like Christmas if the mummers are not knocking at your door. For me, it does not feel like Christmas if there is not any snow. Which is why this year, I don’t feel much like celebrating.

Kindest personal regards,
Do not forget the reason for the season,
Miss Alice Grimm