Free Low-D (The Competition)

[Walden]

I was sitting alone, by myself, with no friends to call on. My family fell on rough times, and I was unable to enroll in classes this fall. Without any money, I couldn't go out and see anyone, even if I knew anybody. I took up pipe & tabor, because that way I can have someone to accompany me, when I play.

The only metal low whistle I have ever played was one of those beat-up, poorly-tuned, "Made in India" monstrosities which I got off eBay some years back. The pipe and tabor is great, but sometimes my nerves cry out for something more. Something with the warm voice of Marilyn Wisel...err... I mean... Marilyn Monroe.

I was in the hospital for more than half a month, in July, due to infection, which the doctor tells me there is little hope of staying rid of. He ran a large battery of tests, against the odds, hoping to find what is causing my problems. He said there wasn't any reason to hope, but it wouldn't cost me anything, so he thought it was worth trying, anyway. I have not heard back, but with the calming effects of an Alba low whistle, I can at least while away the time till I know something, for better or for worse.

[pastorkeith]

I enjoyed the thread as well - the creativity was awesome - so many left-brained people in one place....and thank you all for not trashing my suggestion...and not letting it put a damper on one of the best threads of the year.

Haiti is a tough place to be a kid (well to live, period) , even more so if you are an orphan. In this thread I just wanted to recognize the Doc for his charity (he walks the talk with a humble spirit) and lift up the chance for others to do the same. Crookedtune - you rock, dude.
Thanks and Blessings
pastorkeith

[Trixle]

Trixle,

I thought your story was the very best story in the thread!

Thanks!

[jemtheflute]

Trixle, I thought your story was the very best story in the thread!

Second that!

[walrii]

A wonderful thread. Thanks, crooked tune, for good fun. My vote also goes to Trixle for the best tale.

[WyoBadger]

BRAVO!!! Well Done!

Tom

[synecdoche]

this thread has been wicked fun to read.

and i say a wonderful decision from the judge!

[cadancer]

Trixle, I thought your story was the very best story in the thread!

Second that!

Trixle,

Since people seemed to like your story and you are relatively new to playing. I will send you my Jerry Freeman- Tweaked Shaw (sorry it's a high D and not a low D) if you want it. I offered it earlier in the thread to the runner-up (which I think is you by proclamation).

You had mentioned that you were considering tweaking your Clarke, so this might be an alternative.

Let me know if you want it.

...john

[Trixle]

oh, i'd definitely love that, thanks!

[jemtheflute]

Trixle,
Since people seemed to like your story .......the runner-up (which I think is you by proclamation).

Cadancer, we acclaim your generosity ..... and Trixle's literary skills. You proclaim your decision. Well done both!

Afterthought: can we start a new C&F forum for new/reworked etc. folk tales? I'm sure Trixle's got more ......! I'm thinking too of fantasy stuff like the "In the '60s I saw a chest full of Rudalls in ......" shaggy dogs!

[crookedtune]

I will send you my Jerry Freeman- Tweaked Shaw (sorry it's a high D and not a low D) if you want it.

Alright, folks, now we got the karma flowing! BTW, Doc reports that it takes only a buck a day to fill a little belly in Haiti. He's one of our esteemed members, and a great guy to do business with. Anyone who's in a position to do it may want to consider a small contribution to that worthy cause.

Cheers!

[WyoBadger]

That's right; it doesn't take much to feed a kid in Haiti. I've heard it said that if the average American would give up pop, candy, and/or tobacco for a week, that would feed a Haitian kid for a month.

Here's a web site about the orphanage I have dealings with in Cap Haitian. It has lots of pictures and information about the kids.

http://www.haitichurchofchrist.org/index.html

This isn't to steal Doc/Kieth's thunder or anything. It's just easier to be generous when you realize these are real people, not statistics or faces on TV. Some of us KNOW these kids. They need us. And yes, they LOVE tin whistles--both listening to them and "playing" them.

Tom

[riverman]

"The Reel of Sean and Seamus", or, "Why i think i should get the whistle...."

One night, I awoke from troubled dreams and heard a strange and mournful tune coming from my backyard. A little wary of the woods behind my house, I tried to ignore the music, but it was so strange and so beautiful that I couldn’t help but investigate. Still in my pajamas but grabbing a jacket and shoes, I traipsed out into the woods behind my house, following the sound of what I soon realized to be uillean pipes.
A man of middling age sat in a clearing in the woods, playing a song so beautifully that before I realized it tears were rolling down my face and the strangeness of a stranger out in the woods behind my house in the middle of the night fled from my mind, replaced by an almost tangible curiosity. When his song was finished he looked at me and smiled a smile tinged with sadness and called me forward. A tiny fear bubbled inside me at his beckon, but he assured me that I had nothing to fear from him and begged me listen to his tale.

His name was Seamus, he said, Seamus Gully, and proceeded to tell me a tale that even now, having pondered it for months, am still not quite certain I believe, and it is only, actually since reading your post about the Low D whistle that I have actually started to believe him. I’ll relate the story he told me to you as best as I can remember it, and from that you can judge whether or not I am worthy to receive the whistle.

Long ago there were two brothers, Sean and Seamus, twin musicians that could play so beautifully that even the Fair Folk would sneak to their performances and steal an audience with the great player of the pipes and his twin, the whistler. Now even though the brothers were identical, the whistler was possessed of a disposition so sweet and relaxing that all who knew him loved him. The piper, not so affectionate, had over the years, in the shadow of one identical but much more loved, grown surly and disgruntled, though he hid it well from his brother.

It so happened that one evening, not long before the nobles of the Faerie left our world, a princess among the Fair Folk heard the twin’s music and fell in love with the whistler. She came to them, and upon seeing her, both Piper and Whistler conceived love in their heart for her. She knew that her people’s time among the mortals was coming to an end, so gave to each of the brothers a gift—to the piper a set of pipes much more like uillean pipes than the windblown ones he had played, and to the whistler a long, low toned whistle of a design he had never seen. She taught them a song that, if played in unison at midnight on the winter’s solstice, would open a doorway between the Faerie world and ours. Through the doorway she would return and take with her to the land of the Fair Folk her true love, she told them before our world, and with her departure she gave the piper the kiss of eternal youth, which would allow him to live with her forever in the lands of the Fair Folk.

Now the piper, always jealous of his brother and deeply in love with the maiden as, conceived a plan in his heart to take his brothers place. On the night of the winter’s solstice he poisoned his brother’s drink with a slow acting poison, one which did not fully kick in until after the song was played and the doorway to the land of the Fair Folk was opened. Before the princess arrived the piper switched instruments with his comatose brother (the poison only put him to sleep since he was under the enchantment of the maiden’s kiss, he said). The piper took up his brother’s whistle and waited at the doorway. The maiden came to the Faerie side of the doorway and, seeing the image of her love waiting for her with whistle and open arms, welcomed the piper into her world and the doorway closed forever. The whistler awoke late the next evening, his brothers pipes in his lap and his love forever lost.

It wasn’t long before, in the land of the Fair Folk, that the maiden realized the piper’s treachery, and though she longed for her true love, the doorway between their worlds could not be open without the song played in duet with the pipes and the whistle, and instrument forever more lost in the lands of the Fair. The piper, it is said, perished in the land of the Fair, shunned by all.

With all of her power, the only contact that the princess could make with the whistler was in his dreams, and together, over years, they figured out a way to truly be together. The maiden would whisper into the dreams of a whistle maker the secret of making a low sounding whistle that could play a song in unison with the pipes that would again open the doorway between the worlds. There would only be one made, but the whistle would be special. It would be bought but not sold, rather given away freely in an act of kindness not unlike the kindness found in the whistler who had won the faerie princess’ heart, despite its worth. It would also, she told him, travel a foreign land to a land of lakesm arriving at the doorstep of an unsuspecting whistler.

Seamus, the man I met behind my house in the woods that magical night, seemed to believe that the whistle would come to me and that I would be the one to help him open the doorway back to his love. I thought him crazy, I admit, and had written the entire experience off as a dream or a dazed hallucination. But then I saw your post, and with a flash of wonder, I believed.

I think the whistle you plan to give away, bought but not sold, is the whistle that will forever unite Seamus Gully with his love. I know it sounds unbelievable--i barely believe it myself-- but what if....what if it's true? What if that is the whistle?

Trixie, you absolutely deserve that low D whistle! Even if your haunting and beautiful story were a fabrication (though I believe it completely) your superb writing deserves it! BRAVO!

[riverman]

Oops, I just read page five after I posted on page six!

Good choice for the winner!

It was fun reading (and writing) all the stuff.

Trixie, you deserve a gold star if nothing else!!

[Trixle]

Thanks everyone for the kind words