This is a Winter Solstice/ New Year song. I was inspired to write it after learning that "Orion's Belt" was known, in the Norse cultures, as "Frigg's Distaff" (or "Freya's Distaff," for worshippers of the Vanir, rather than the Aesir)

Some of the imagery came from this paragraph (from an article on astronomy by E.C. Krupp of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles):

Sometimes it was said Frigg was parked next to a golden spindle. But with or without a spinning wheel, as Mother Earth she collected the thread of time on a celestial axis. Frigg's Distaff is on the celestial equator, the blue are that crosses the monthly sky map from east to west and follows the circular spin of the sky around the celestial pole. The pole of the sky is, of course, the top of the axis of the Earth's rotation. This polar axis is the spindle on which Frigg's thread is spun, and the celestial equator is a reasonable candidate for the whorl that helps keep the sky spinning and time's wheel turning.

(That article also goes into some of the Greek myths touching on the "music of the spheres" and sirens' songs, by the way)

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THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN
By Ann Magill

How deep and clear, these winter skies!
How infinite these shining stars?
The Earth, in dreaming slumber lies,
And wonder cracks my awe-struck heart.

Chorus:
To the Queen of Heaven is my prayer,
'tis She, who spins the Thread of Time,
'tis She who twines the sunlight clear,
And weaves the Tapestry of Life.

The Goddess spins another year.
Another thread in her design
Our pleasure's song and sorrow's tears,
The weave of flesh and warp of time.

(Chorus)

My wonder's deeper than my speech.
My wonder's greater than my heart.
I pray that in Her Tapestry
I'll know the joy of my small part.

(Chorus)

(Repeat first verse and chorus)

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To get your computer to play the tune for this, copy the emboldened code below, and paste it into the text window at
href="http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html">Concertina.net's ABC Convert-A-Matic (might be easier to

right-click, to open in a new window) and click [submit]. This will lead you to another page with the link "Midi Music

File;" click that, and your computer should play this tune for you automatically. If it doesn't, you might want to

try turning off any pop-up blockers.

X:1
T:Queen of Heaven
C:Ann Magill
M:4/4
Q:1/4=94
K:Bb
zCC2EE2F|E2DC2zCE|GG2AB2B2|
G4GB2B|c2B2A2G2|F4F2E2|
FE2DC2B,2|C6z2|CCF3FE2|
DC2D2C3|EE3GG2A|B3Bc3B|
A2G2F3F|E2FE2DC2|B,C4z3|]

I know the tune is in an unusal mode, but I'm not sure which one it is. Help, please (Also, if some of the rhythm or singability needs smoothing out, help with that would be appreciated, too)?

There's a link in the Modes for Mudcatters thread to a page that had a nifty chart for figuring out keys in different modes (with the number of flats or sharps in the scale going down the side, and the names of the different modes going across the top, and the different keys filling out the grid in the middle). But that page is now defunct, and is no more. Any ideas on where I can find a similar chart for such figuring?