After getting the topic, I ruminated on sheep as I walked around, and the idea of wealth in non-specie form (i.e., gold or silver) occurred to me. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a rhyme for silver (though I tried..."elver" almost works). Somewhere along the line, I got the idea of decoupling wealth and happiness. It's a truism that money can't buy happiness (but it's also a cliche that "I'd like to test that theory..."). My own take. based on the well-respected theories of pop-psychology, is that it's what you do that makes you happiest. For some people, money is a way of keeping score...and these people tend to be unhappy. For others, money is a means to your goals, and achieving those goals is what makes you happy. (For some very rare individuals, the goal is "to have a lot of money"...as one of Terry Pratchett's characters says, "The whole point of having a great big pile of gold is to have a great big pile of gold..." These people tend to be happy, albeit a little strange...)
I finished it, put the web page up, and sent it to Katt for critique. She made a number of good observations, most of which I've incorporated. The only one that is (currently) in progress is writing a last stanza; I'm on the fence as to whether it needs it. On the one hand, the song does end abruptly (though as a performance, I'd probably repeat the last quatrain or couplet as the close). On the other hand, I'm not sure that adding a closing stanza would improve it. (To be precise: I'm not sure that I could add a stanza that would improve it, since I'd have to curtail the temptation to preach...)
Copyright 2010 by Jeff Suzuki
Introduction
So after a few glasses of wine at a wedding in the middle of October, I made a really stupid decision...I'd do a serious try for Bardic Champion in 2011. As I'm writing this in 2010, we don't know what will happen, though in all likelihood someone else will get the post and we'll all breathe a sigh of relief. In any case, in order to prepare myself for the post, I decided I need to get back into the habit of writing, and in particular, writing to spec (as opposed to writing what I felt like, when I felt like it, and how I felt like), so I told my apprentice Katt to periodically give me topics. The next day, we met at the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck (more or less by planning), and she said "Okay...sheep. And to Oil of Barley/Stingo."
I blocked out most of the song while walking around (see the notes). I did have to look up a few things after I got home, but managed to finish this within 24 hours.
The Duke and the Yeoman (to the tune of "Stingo/Oil of Barley")
A Duke was riding through his lands
With knights and squires around him
A silver chain about his neck
His surcoat lined with fur trim
Though gold rings shone upon his hands
His eyes were hid in darkness
They came upon a yeoman clad
In clothing in rude and thinning
No titles, gold, or land he had
And yet the man was grinning.
The duke said "Wherefore do you smile,
The man looked up, and thought awhile
And told the Duke this story.
"I found a sickly lamb one day,
Its mother dead in birthing.
I nursed it back to health and when
It grew into a shearling.
The finest fleece it now possessed
More fine than silk or satin
I sheared it off, and spun it out,
And wove into for this jerkin.
Can gaudy baubles bring you joy,
Can titles make you taller?
Can gold do more than buy your fur
To line your cuffs and collar?
But what we build will long endure,
A value beyond measure,
A joy to make, a joy to take
A joy to all time treasure."
Notes
This was originally "around his neck," but Katt pointed out that I used "around" in the preceding line and suggested the change.
I'd originally had "But though gold rings". Katt pointed out it didn't scan. The rewrite is a definite improvement, especially since it changed the emphasized syllable from "ring" to "gold".
The last couplet is repeated in most renditions of the Oil of Barley. You can repeat the last couplet if you want, though I'm a big fan of shorter-is-better. The awkwardness of this couplet is deliberate (or, at least, I wrote it, realized it was awkward, and decided to keep it...)
The original line was "You've got no gold or glory", which contains a contraction and the awful "got no" construction. Katt suggested the rewrite.
Originally this was "dead from scrapie." I changed it for two reasons. First, scrapie doesn't seem to have been a recognized disease of sheep until the 18th century, which makes it post-period. More importantly: I couldn't figure out what rhymed with "scrapie"...
Had to look this one up, since I didn't know how old lambs were before they got their first haircut. A shearling is a year-old-sheep, right around the time of its first shearing.
This was the first actual line that came to mind.