The monks of the olden days (re: Farts)

27 Feb 08 - 03:49 AM (#2273434)
Subject: The monks of the olden days (re: Farts)
From: Haruo

I really don't think this is a BS thread, but I'm not sure what it is. Tune challenge? On the fairly famous cute-animals-with-funny-captions website called "Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures - I Can Has Cheezburger?" a picture of a kitten purportedly farting, captioned "i farts in yor gen'ral direkshun!", has spawned a reaction thread that contains some gems of versification at least one of which is high poetry that cries out to be sung. To see it in situ, go to the page here and use your browser's "Find" feature to search for "monks". Here are the lyrics, posted by a participant who goes by "gibbocat":

The monks of the olden days classed it an art -
the penchant that some had for tuning a fart.
I personally wouldn't know quite where to start
do you use just your thumbs or your fingers?
.
to discover the mystery or find out some part -
was it muscle controlling or some herbal tart?
I hid in a parsnip sack under the cart
where the odour of oxen dung lingers
.
I lay in that stink til my eyes had to smart
but on hearing a tune prized my eyelids apart
and there stood the bare-cheeked monks giving it heart
to accompany the madrigal singers.
.
.
I never did uncover the secret.
And to this day I still whiff faintly of the ox!
But not all tales have a happy ending,
or such a smelly one!

"to accompany" doesn't seem to scan quite right, though it's not impossible, but it might be worth emending through the folk process.

Most of the other doggerel snippets in the thread are, I think, neither particularly novel nor particularly noteworthy, but the above seems to me to rise above its origins.

Haruo

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27 Feb 08 - 04:44 AM (#2273465)
Subject: RE: The monks of the olden days (re: Farts)
From: sian, west wales

Flatulists seem to have been quite popular, even into the 19th & 20th Century. There's an engraving** of an medieval Irish reciter and harper performing at an outdoor feast, with two braigetoiri (professional farters) in the background. (One perilously near to a rather large bonfire.) One seems to be 'playing' in hands-free mode, the other is hands-on.

Makes any complaints about bodhrans fade into insignificance, doesn't it?

sian

** for those interested in 'chapter and verse' the engraving is from John Derricke's 'The Image of Irelande' (London, 1581; STC 6734; facsimile edns, Edinburgh, A.&C. Black, 1883; Belfast, Blackstaff, 1985)

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