Fiddler's Green

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Fiddler's Green is the happy land imagined by sailors where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing and dancers who never tire.

[edit] History

Fiddler's Green features in an old Irish legend, to the effect that a sailor can find the paradisiacal village by walking inland with an oar over his shoulder until he finds a place where people ask him what he's carrying.^{[citation needed]} This legend may have some of its origin in Tiresias' prophecy in Homer's Odyssey, in which he tells Odysseus that the only way to appease the sea god Poseidon and find happiness is to take an oar and walk until he finds a land where he is asked what he is carrying, and there make his sacrifice.

It is also the subject of numerous songs, including this about a fisherman who is dying at the dockside

As I walked by the dockside one evening so fair

To view the still waters and take the salt air,

I heard an old fisherman singing this song,

Won't you take me away boys, my time isn't long.

Chorus:

Wrap me up in my old oilskins and jumpers,

No more on the docks I'll be seen,

Just tell me old shipmates I'm taking a trip, mates,

And I'll see you someday in Fiddler's Green.

On Fiddler's Green is a place I've heard tell

Where fishermen go if they don't go to hell,

Where the weather is fair and the dolphins do play,

And the cold coast of Greenland is far, far away. (Chorus)

Where the sky's always clear and there's never a gate

Where the fish jump onboard with a swish of their tails,

Where you lie at your leisure, there's no work to do;

And the skipper's below making tea for the crew. (Chorus)

When you get back in dock and the long trip is through

There's pubs and there's clubs and there's lassies there too,

Where the girls are all pretty and the beer is all free,

And there's bottles of rum growing on every tree (Chorus)

Now I don't want a harp nor a halo, not me

Just give me a breeze and a good rolling sea,

And I'll play me old squeeze-box as we sail along,

With the wind in the rigging to sing me this song. (Chorus)

Just tell me old shipmates I'm taking a trip, mates,

I'll see you some day in Fiddler's Green.

This song was written and is copyrighted by John Conolly, a Lincolnshire songwriter in England Copyright 1970 for the World, March Music Ltd SOF, and has since passed into tradition and is sung worldwide in nautical and Irish traditional circles.

Furthermore, a ballad was written anonymously for the US cavalry, published in a 1923 US Cavalry Manual. It is still used in modern cavalry units to memorialize the deceased.

Halfway down the trail to hell

In a shady meadow green,

Are the souls of all dead troopers camped

Near a good old-time canteen

And this eternal resting place

Is known as Fiddler's Green.

Marching past, straight through to hell,

The infantry are seen,

Accompanied by the Engineers,

Artillery and Marine,

For none but the shades of Cavalrymen

Dismount at Fiddlers' Green.

Though some go curving down the trail

To seek a warmer scene,

No trooper ever gets to Hell

Ere he's emptied his canteen,

And so rides back to drink again

With friends at Fiddlers' Green.

And so when man and horse go down

Beneath a saber keen,

Or in a roaring charge or fierce melee

You stop a bullet clean,

And the hostiles come to get your scalp,

Just empty your canteen,

And put your pistol to your head

And go to Fiddlers' Green.

In an ironic (and somewhat morbid) choice of names, "Fiddler's Green" was the name of an artillery Fire Support Base in Military Region III in Vietnam in 1972 occupied principally by elements of 2nd Sqdn., 11th Armored Cavalry.

"Fiddler's Green" was also the name of the informal bar at the Ft. Sill Officer's club until the late 1980's. Ft. Sill oddly enough is the home of the US Army's Field Artillery branch.

[edit] Fiddler's Green in popular culture

• "Fiddler's Green" is a 1960 speculative fiction novelette by Richard McKenna, a "disturbingly odd tale of escape from death at sea into a flawed consensus reality." (David Langford)
• In Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic books, Fiddler's Green is a location (and at the same time a character) in the mystical landscape of the Dreaming. Gaiman based the character on author G. K. Chesterton.
• In the George A. Romero film Land of the Dead, Fiddler's Green is a small section of Pittsburgh, bordered on three sides by rivers and fences, and fortified to protect its inhabitants from the zombies.
• The song "Fiddler's Green" by The Tragically Hip.
• The song "Fiddler on the Green" by Demons & Wizards
• The Irish-Folk band Fiddler's Green from Germany.
• Tim O'Brien's recording Fiddler's Green won the 2006 Grammy award for Best Traditional Folk Album.
• Robert A. Heinlein had several novels that featured planets named "Fiddler's Green".
• Fiddler's Green Paper models are a leading supplier of card models.
• There is an organic golf course in Antigonish, Nova Scotia called "Fiddler's Green".
• There is an Irish pub by the name of Fiddler's Green in San Francisco, CA, near Fisherman's Wharf.
• Fiddler's Green is the name of an authentic Irish pub and restaurant in Winter Park, FL (a suburb of Orlando).
• Fiddler's Green is the name of an amphitheater and concert venue in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado.
• Fiddler's Green is the original name of the village of Springville, New York.
• Fiddler's Green is also the name of a gaming bar in Northfield, Vermont.
• There is a pub called "The Fiddler's Green" next to the Royal Marines Barracks at Chivenor in England.
• Fiddler's Green is the name of the largest golf pro shop in the United States.
• Fiddler's Green is the name of a Pub/Nightclub in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.
• Fiddler's Green is the name of a small village in Cornwall, England.
• Fiddler's Green is the name of a pub frequented by sailors in San Diego, California.
• Fiddler's Green is the name of a wooded, waterfront homeowner's association overlooking Long Island Sound in Lloyd Harbor, NY.
• Fiddler's Green is the name of a bar in the 'gay' area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Fiddler's Green in the Officer's Club at Fort Sill was so named because Fort Sill was originally a Cavalry Post. It was established in 1869 by Gen Phil Sheridan.
• Fiddler's Green is also a SNCO club at Camp Pendelton Ca, Las Pulgas home of the 11th Marines.
• Fiddler's Green is the informal bar beneath the Officer's Club at Fort Knox, KY - Home of the US Army Armor School - where Armor and Armored Cavalry soldiers are trained for combat.

[edit] See also

• Big Rock Candy Mountain
• Cockaigne
• Order of the Spur
• Paradise
• Valhalla
• Tír na nÓg