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Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: punkfolkrocker Date: 15 Mar 09 - 09:59 AM hi george.. I am usualy not so direct to people I don'nt know .. I find it uncomfortable.. But sorry... you are wrong.. I don't know what upset you or who or what you are at odds with. but this thread honestly is not about what you are complaining about.. This is an objective inquiry into an accademic field of study.. you are not being a kind person.. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: punkfolkrocker Date: 15 Mar 09 - 10:11 AM I show true heart.. and certainly care about a youg woman about to lose her only once given precious special life that concenrns me.. that saddens me as it is distessing for all good caring people. I think you are possibly a nasty person who needs to pick fights with imagionary enemies because you thrive on the power you think you gain from negative unneccessary conflict.. please critiscise my spelling because like Jade I am not so well educated as yourself |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: GUEST,Edthefolkie Date: 15 Mar 09 - 10:16 AM Re Ms Goody, my take on it all is that it's not the poor girl that's the problem here - it's the circus which exploits her. Some of the bastards who create these programmes claim that the people who appear on them are "empowered" - no doubt the guys in charge of the Colosseum told that to the poor sods who had to appear in the arena. As far as I can see the whole thing is a bit like slowing down on the motorway to eyeball a collision in the opposite lanes. We all do it, but it's not anything to be proud of. On a positive note about gallows humour - last night we went to see the wonderful Dave Swarbrick - a Lazarus if ever there was one. For those who don't know, years of smoking legal and illegal substances resulted in a successful double lung transplant (or as one local rag had it, a double heart transplant). By this time we must all have heard Swarb's remark after his obituary was published in the Torygraph - "It's not the first time I've died in Coventry!" |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Richard Bridge Date: 15 Mar 09 - 10:50 AM There seems to be some sort of curious double standard, adopted by the lace-curtain brigade here. They shout such a lot that they say that democratic principles (which, we are often told, do not apply here) indicate that the thread (which is because of but not about Jade Goody) should be deleted. But there are hundreds of thousands of pages of Jade Goody jokes out there. Does that not indicate that the lace curtainers are in the minority (if that matters)? Incidentally, JG was all over the front of the Sun yesterday, and it has been put to me that at least at some point she has said that she wants her cancer to be disussed, as it may save the lives of others. Academics discuss the use of humour as a defence mechanism during the holocaust. http://web.macam98.ac.il/~ochayo/absractn.html Why then shoud it be taboo to dicuss the humour (or attempted humour) that arises about Jade Goody's cancer and death? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: katlaughing Date: 15 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM Some of you need to take the blinders off and at least try to understand what we others are saying. And, drop the name-calling, i.e. prudes, lace curtain, etc. ...folklore discussion, not a discussion of morals. Frankly, I find that absurd. There are so many stories involving morality...to make them exclusive of one another seems amoral to me. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/dis From: Musket Date: 15 Mar 09 - 07:05 PM Two things to point out, hopefully explaining my views here; 1. Humour is always at somebody's expense. It is the root of humour. Jokes about dogs and penguins only become funny when we give them human traits that we can recognise. Trying to find a funny angle to any current situation is human nature. For some people. the taboo nature makes it more daring, risqué and leads to a double joke, as the sense of outrage will add to some people's perception of being funny. Example - I find blue comics boorish, yet I admit that after a few pints, some of the jokes begin to get slightly better or appear to, yet I would never laugh when sober. 2. I find it weird that so many people are asking for this thread to be shut down because it is offensive. Yet when I mentioned that as an ex miner, I find the song "Blackleg Miner" deeply offensive, everybody on that thread rattled on about having the right to sing it, has a folklore angle etc etc. Yes, offence is a relative not absolute condition. I think that exploring gallows humour is an excellent thread topic. I suppose with 20/20 hindsight, bringing a real live situation ie., Ms Goody into it hasn't helped the purpose of the thread, but hey ho. Ian |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Joe Offer Date: 15 Mar 09 - 07:34 PM You know, Kat (and others) - We seem to be divided about 50-50. Is fifty percent agreement enough to justify silencing the other half? There are people who want to discuss this from a folkloric perspective. It's very clear that you don't like it, but isn't it their right to discuss what they want to discuss? Isn't that the principle of free discussion that we've lived by for the last twelve years - that people should be able to discuss things without harassment? And those of you who seem to think we are so unholy for wanting to discuss these jokes - how do you know our reasons, when we claim our reasons are otherwise? You all sound like my ex-wife, who for 20 years found pure evil in my motive for every thing I did and every word I spoke....and now she likes me, because it turns out I was a hell of a lot better than husband #2 and husband #3. Actually, I have no interest in the jokes myself. I get grossed out by most stand-up comics, and I leave the room when jokes get cruel or gross or degrading - but if people want to discuss such jokes, then I think they should be able to do so without harassment. So, I dunno. I wish I knew what to say or do. I think it's my duty to defend the right of people to say what I would never say myself.... -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Sorcha Date: 15 Mar 09 - 07:51 PM And I say again, publicly, thank you Joe. What do you suppose Mary Hamiltons family felt???????? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: maeve Date: 15 Mar 09 - 08:34 PM Hi there, Joe. For what it's worth, I'd say y'all have way too many tricky issues muddying the water, tangled up with actions and words that fit my understanding of the nature of disrespect, name-calling, and bullying. It can't be solved by shouting more loudly than others or by leaving the discussion. I can deal quite easily with an exploration of how we complex creatures use humour/humor to deal with illness, death, discomfort, pain, fear, and grief. I can understand that some of the folks here will differ dramatically in their handling and perceptions of the issues that are likely to arise in comparing your ideas on the subject with mine, say. I can choose to respectfully agree or disagree with what I encounter in such a discourse. I can even leave the discussion and decide whether or not to take it up again when someone's views upset me. I can choose to respond rather than react. However, I take issue with any discussion that is used to tear down named individuals whether in the public eye or not. I object even more strongly to seeing a Mudcat discussion used by both members and Moderators to verbally slam and play power games with members and Moderators due to differing points of view, prior negative history between individuals, nationality, or any other cause. It is not productive. It causes harm. It is what has given Max's wonderful creation a bad smell. The subject matter is important. The way it is approached makes a difference. Everyone posting here is deserving of respect. Everyone posting here is capable of using PMs to resolve personal issues and to offer clarification where there has been misunderstanding. Some would do well to cool down and make peace. The 50/50 split you mention doesn't include those who can't believe spring fever has choked out common sense. Time to calm down and re-evaluate. Respectfully, maeve |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: katlaughing Date: 15 Mar 09 - 11:43 PM Joe, since you renamed and restarted this thread, several of us who did not like the Jade Goody title have offered some of our own insights and humour re' death and dis-ease, yet you keep harping on us...I don't think anyone has asked for the thread, as it now stands, to be deleted. If they did, I've missed it. What we always objected to and what none of you seem to be hearing was the thread being specifically about Goody. I don't know how to put that in any plainer fashion. maeve, my apologies. You have spoken well and have my respect, so I won't belabour the point any further. As for attribution, the joke I posted was a spontaneous posting from some "muse." |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 04:12 AM You don't seem to get it Joe. You publically overuled one of the moderators. You then condoned the Jade Goody jokes by opening a new thread and then you publically had a go at some of us as well as including all the previous posts from the thread that was deleted. I don't think that was smart You should have let SS start a new thread with the title it now has and things would have been fine. There was no reason to have done what you did. You lit the fire again. I have no issue with the posters or the thread. I do have an issue about using Jade Goody as the basis for having the thread. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Richard Bridge Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:14 AM I don't get it either, then, because I think Joe was exactly right in that the power of gallows humour lies in the ability to pique, and without the current referent the thread is deprived of immediacy. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 06:33 AM Well I can't help you there Richard |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jack Blandiver Date: 16 Mar 09 - 07:14 AM Can we have more of the humour please? If the sanctimonious amongst you want a discussion to prove how much better they are than the rest of us then please open up another thread entitled A Battle Between the Caring of the World and Those Who Don't Give a Hoot. I think I feel another verse for Brian O'Linn coming on: And Brian O'Linn he shot an old dog And inside it's belly he found an frog And inside the frog he found a gold ring - That's the third time this week, said Brian O'Linn! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: GUEST,Jim P Date: 16 Mar 09 - 07:14 AM Well, I've waded through the entire thread, and find that, unlike the OP's intent and that of Joe in re-opening the thread, no one seems to be discussing the issue. Things seem to have degenerated into name-calling and attacks/defenses of Ms. Goody. So, can we move on from that and discuss the issue? Carla Ulbrich, a wonderful and funny folkie, was stricken with a debilitating illness not long ago, which caused her, among other things, to have to completely re-learn how to play guitar. One of her coping mechanisms was to put out a whole CD called "Sick Humor," full of songs about her experiences. I have to say some of it was funny, and some just hard to listen to, but it obviously was a great coping mechanism for HER. Of course, when I first heard it, it was shortly after my own wife died (breast cancer), and I wasn't really in much of a mood for the longest time for anything of the sort. Clearly, that coping mechanism didn't work for ME. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jack Blandiver Date: 16 Mar 09 - 08:06 AM I wouldn't have thought of humour as a coping mechanism for the bereaved. It comes more from the objective / collective sense (hence Folklore) of experience - and whilst, in this case at least, it would at least appear to have a subjective focus, what we actually see is a mythologised celebrity figure many times removed from the corporeal. Indeed, I noticed in passing that the Daily Star headline on Saturday referred to her as Dying Jade Goody - just to remind us, no doubt. Thus our feelings are part of the common hysteria, lacking the intimate focus of actual bereavement, rather like the mass outpourings we saw after the death of Princess Diana when the nation grieved as one; I swear I saw life-long anarchists weeping. In many ways it comes down to the old life goes on thing, the evident conundrum of which we find at the heart of Auden's Funeral Blues. For whom exactly does life go on? Certainly not for the bereaved, and yet, sure enough, there it is; life going on, inevitably, with death stalking us at every turn, and at whatever remove. There are times in our lives we might laugh at such things; there are most certainly times when we won't. We've all been there; we all will be there too. It's impossible to to a imagine life - any life - without it; a life with love at its heart becomes all the more precious. Anything vile will attract humour; from cancer to paedophilia - neither of which are laughing matters in and of themselves. The humour is by way of both containment and diminishment, much as the comics made humorous figures of Hitler and Goebbels during the war; much as folk tales do with the personification of Evil & Death into entities which we might then confront, and even defeat, although in Duncan Williamson's Death and the Nut, there is the natural order to consider! Thus is life once more realigned; are lives are enriched by love, destroyed by loss; though we might emerge to live, and love, again. But once we're gone that's it. You're a long time dead, as they say. I wonder - maybe for those of us with no religion perhaps these things take on a slightly different hue... |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jack Blandiver Date: 16 Mar 09 - 11:49 AM Taste my friend, is like style, you either have it, or you don't. This thread is without doubt, by it's inception, the most tasteless thread in many a long year. In a word: Bullshit. Please, Guest, take the time to read what this thread was initially and is actually about before contributing any more sanctimonious crap like this; God knows we're wading through enough of it here as it is. No one is glorifying in anything, least of the pain and suffering of another human being. Rather, we are pondering the mechanism that might throw up such material in circumstances as adverse (and unprecedented) as those we are experiencing with respect of Jade Goody's celebrity demise. It is there; it is current; it is folklore - in its pertinence it tells us a lot about how we deal with these things. This is what we're attempting to discuss here - as I said my opening post, in the originally tiled Folklore: Jade Goody Jokes - A very public celebrity death, which raises all sorts of issues & provokes all sorts of responses, but the most immediate folkloric angle is the humour... |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Megan L Date: 16 Mar 09 - 11:54 AM It is good to see that the rule about no personal attacks is being so well enforced
At this juncture, I would like to remind everyone that personal attacks are still not allowed, and neither are anonymous posts. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: GUEST,Giok Date: 16 Mar 09 - 12:00 PM That was my post SS, and I'm sure that as this thread is above the line, GUEST posts are allowed. I suppose if you don't agree with the poster of course. Then you can delete it anyway. You can go to whatever length you like SS, you can scream and shout and jump up and down. The thread as originally titled was in poor taste, even ghoulish. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jack Blandiver Date: 16 Mar 09 - 12:01 PM Damn, they done deleted the post to which I was responding! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 12:06 PM LOL |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jack Blandiver Date: 16 Mar 09 - 12:17 PM That was my post SS, and I'm sure that as this thread is above the line, GUEST posts are allowed. I suppose if you don't agree with the poster of course. Then you can delete it anyway. You can go to whatever length you like SS, you can scream and shout and jump up and down. The thread as originally titled was in poor taste, even ghoulish. I don't have the power to delete posts, Giok - that's Mudcat policy regardless, but I'll quote you complete here just in case that gets deleted too, which I doubt it will now that you've identified yourself. Otherwise, I'm not screaming, shouting or indeed jumping up and down; nor, indeed, am I wriggling. The thread was not in poor taste, nor even ghoulish - rather it was jumped on by an unthinking mob of the Emotionally Correct who let their caring hearts overrule their heads, seeing only what they wanted to see; but such is the way of the righteous. We, as a society, respond collectively and spontaneously to such matters, although it wasn't until last Monday night that I heard my first Jade Goody Joke, in a very folky context I might add, and told by one of my favourite ever storytellers. See my OP for the gist of it, which stuck me as warmly affectionate with an element of the believable in there too, underlying the imminence of a very tragic loss. We're in the middle of something quite unique here, and I find that as genuinely fascinating as I do deeply moving. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 12:27 PM >>The thread as originally titled was in poor taste, even ghoulish. << Agreed |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jean(eanjay) Date: 16 Mar 09 - 01:19 PM We're in the middle of something quite unique here We were in the middle of something quite unique after Madeleine McCann went missing and people were sacked for making jokes about her. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: GUEST,Giok Date: 16 Mar 09 - 01:49 PM I'm not saying you deleted it SS. Perhaps I could have phrased my post better, but I would have hoped the punctuation would have been clear enough. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: GUEST,Giok Date: 16 Mar 09 - 01:52 PM As I said before though, Guest posts are allowed above the line, we have been told that several times. So if the over eager clone had left it alone, after checking who posted it really [which they can do] then the misunderstanding would not have arisen. :) GUEST, Giok, that is a mistatement of the policy, as you know. Even above the line, anonymous posts from "GUESTS" should have a consistent identity. The use of double ID's is not allowed, which is what was done in this case. There are exceptions to this rule, in which reasonable latitude is allowed. For example if using one's real identity would cause them real jeopardy or embarassment. That is not the same as saying you can just do it anytime you want. The other exception would be where it is very clear that a music/information request is from someone who obviously has surfed in and made a request, unknowing of the rules. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: GUEST,Giok Date: 16 Mar 09 - 03:19 PM oops, I'm sooooooooo sorry, I forgot to put my name in the little box. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/dis From: GUEST,dulcimerjohn Date: 16 Mar 09 - 04:25 PM sees this subject and thinks of last scene of 'Meaning of Life'... |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 04:33 PM Always look on the bright side of life di dum di dum di dum di dum |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jean(eanjay) Date: 16 Mar 09 - 04:39 PM LOL |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:09 PM Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/dis From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:18 PM Personally, I have never hear or read a Goody Joke - I have no intention of ever doing so...however, I really like this thread.
It would be interesting to look into enlisted men's songs in the field from the Gulf region's last twenty years. There should be some classics floating around.
Found in war songs - (a rock-climber's version is somewhere)
GORY GORY - Several versions are in the DT
Gory gory. what a terrible way to die
He jumped without a parachute from forty thousand feet (3X)
They scraped him off the tarmac like a dollop of strawberry jam (3X)
They spread him on a postcard and hey sent him home to Mum (3X)
BELLS OF HELL - in the DT WWI song
The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
Oh death where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling
The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
Sincerely,
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:19 PM Spirit-My Heart Will Go On |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:28 PM Somme |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jeri Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:28 PM Anonymous GUEST posts above the line are left alone unless the poster's being argumentative. On the subject of gallows humor, I once had to read someone a comment that had been deleted, which I had noted before it had been zapped. It was Rick Fielding, and someone was snarking about his imminent demise (which wasn't all that imminent at the time). I knew he liked that sort of humor, and he really didn't understand why the comment got deleted. I figure it was more for the sensitive souls who weren't Rick and who would have been terribly offended on his behalf. I guess something can be not such a big deal to the subject and offend the crap out of other people. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 06:03 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPW9siuSfoU |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jean(eanjay) Date: 16 Mar 09 - 06:09 PM Villan, I really enjoyed that video when you linked it on the other thread. I'm listening to it now and then I'm going to favourite it. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 06:12 PM Glad you like it eanjay. Such a lovely sad song. By one of the best songwriters who sadly is no longer with us. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/dis From: Georgiansilver Date: 16 Mar 09 - 06:20 PM Our Cyril wrote some cracking songs.... RIP good man! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 16 Mar 09 - 06:24 PM Cyril Tawney was my main Icon in the late 60's together with Martyn Wyndham-Read. I never (sadly) got him up here to Lincolnshire, but learn't my lesson and got MWR up here and will do again in November. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Emma B Date: 16 Mar 09 - 08:06 PM A friend inadvertantly sang Keith Marsden's wonderful 'The Funeral song' when I had just returned from my father's funeral What lovely 'therapy' amongst grief |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: katlaughing Date: 16 Mar 09 - 11:01 PM Thanks for the link, EmmaB. Villan, that is a beautiful song and video. Wow...tears. Thank you! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/dis From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 17 Mar 09 - 02:03 AM Don't know what happened but I guess I like to lie below some Mudcatters twice.
Iconoblast - from the past
Isn't Marde-Gra the same sort of thing - and the Mexican "Day of the Dead?" Today's USANewsweek Magazine March 16, 2009 had two separate articles ... one on death and Goody, the other on dying and American Funeral practices.
If anyone cares to check - Shakespeare has wonderful ironic humor on death...from Mercutio (very very funny fellow) in Romeo and Juliet to of course Hamlet where everyone dies...to King Lear ....and then branch over to Mr. Gay and the "Begger Opera" ... any country that digs up their dead to hang them for public display on the Tryburn Tree...has to have a sense of morbidity. I am beginning to believe it is only the Yank's senses that have been offended. Newsweek commented that they doubt the Goody video show will cross the pond.
I was looking for the "rock climber's song" which has a line "send you home in a body bag" and stumbled upon this DT gem that thumb's its nose at Hollywood's John Wayne movie hit about Vietnam Heroes.
Sorry that Mudcat does not connect into internal posting at the moment - so look under "send you home" for the full detail.
SPECIAL FORCES SONG Bird shit falling from the sky,
Singing this song in 1969 at Texas A&M - could you imagine the reaction?
Still looking for "Body Bag" done to the tune of Camptown Races
Sincerely,
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Liz the Squeak Date: 17 Mar 09 - 02:46 AM Bugger... pipped at the post. LTS |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 17 Mar 09 - 03:30 AM Kat Glad you enjoyed that one. Has been one of my favourites for ages. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/dis From: Gervase Date: 17 Mar 09 - 03:50 AM Sick? If you look back over his contributions to a lot of threads, he is genuinely interested in the folklore of the macabre, and has a lot to offer on the subject. To dismiss him with a veiled 'fuck off' is the equivalent of the Victorian habit of pretending that sex and prostitution didn't exist and censuring those who dared mention it. You can't just put your fingers in your ears and go 'la la la' and expect something will go away. I think the first macabre joke I heard was when the heiress Lesley Whittle was kidnapped and murdered back in the Seventies; along the lines of "What's green and hangs down drains." Of course it goes back further than that. Heard the phrase "Sweet Fanny Adams"? That was a sailor's joke about their tinned beef, referring to a young girl who was murdered and butchered in the 19th century. And I'm sure there are plenty of earlier examples. Had the internet existed in Victorian times, there would doubtless have been people furiously posting their protests at the horrible disrespect shown to Fanny's family by those horrible brutes who dared mock her grisly end! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Rasener Date: 17 Mar 09 - 04:21 AM OK Like some others, I will bow out from here to stop any further issues. Enjoy yourselves. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: GUEST,Giok Date: 17 Mar 09 - 05:43 AM The lion has been sated The vultures have ripped and torn, yet still they hover The jackals have, as is their wont, run in had a nip and tear, then gone to hide. Leaving only the bare bones and rotting pieces of flesh. Time for the maggots to appear. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: melodeonboy Date: 17 Mar 09 - 06:00 AM The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out etc..........! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Gallows Humour-laughing at death/disease From: Jack Blandiver Date: 17 Mar 09 - 06:58 AM A real piece of Gallows Humour concerns Michael Curry, who, in September 1739, was hung in Newcastle for the murder of the landlord of The Three Horse Shoes in Northumberland. His body was then gibbeted at the coast within sight of his crime at a place known to this day as Curry's Point. A blue plaque records the events - (see Here). A local folktale records that two travellers were making their way from Blyth to Shields by an intermittent moonlight one stormy night later that same autumn. As the road takes them near the place where the rotting corpse hangs, their talk, quite naturally, turns to Curry. 'A bad night even for a corpse,' says one. 'And I don't suppose he'll be getting much by the company,' said the other. 'Unless you go and ask him how he's doing,' says one. 'I'll do it for a guinea,' says the other. So off the goes, taking the long road round as indicated by his friend, who, being a local man, takes the shorter route across the moor, where he shins up the gallows and waits for his companion, all the while trying not to be overly concerned by the presence of the stinking corpse swinging beneath him. After a while, up comes the other. 'How are doing there, Curry?' he asks, holding up his lanthorn to illuminate the grisly scene. And, to his horror, back comes the reply: 'Fine, lad, fine - though it's gey cowld hingin here wi thi storm comin on. You wadn't be gi'en us a len' o yer clout wad ye?' Needless to say the hapless traveller took to his heels and didn't stop running until he reached their lodging in Shields, where, of course, he was surprised to find his companion, who'd arrived some time before him, equally as white as a winding sheet, fortifying body and soul with a drop of the finest the house had to offer. In some versions of the story the supernatural element is removed, but, as a kid I always preferred this one. For another element to this see: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=52123&messages=37#2244288 |
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