the crane wife
it's past my bedtime, but i'm up stitching up my next podcast, i've had a bit to drink, and even if i'm sleepy, i don't want to go to bed yet. damn, too many of my posts prove that i always feel guilty for staying up.
whatever.
i'm listening to the new decemberists album, more precisely to the song "the crane wife 1 & 2". the whole album was inspired by a japanese folktale called, duh, "the crane wife". it's about this guy who was poor and lonely and living in the forest. he was completely desperate. one day he went out of his house and found a wounded crane at his doorstep. whether on not the crane was pierced through by an arrow is dubious. but he found the skinny injured crane and decided to take it home and take care of it. a while after that, when the crane healed, he decided to let it go and fly away where it belongs. but the crane came back. in the shape of a beautiful woman. who fell in love and married the miserable guy. but no, there's no happy end. read on. so they got married and were happy for a few days, and then the guy remembered how poor he was. he shared his torments with his wife and she offered him the following deal:
she'd weave silk clothes for them to sell but under one condition. he should never, under any circumstances, see her doing it. he agreed. and then she started weaving and he started selling the clothes. driven by his greed he asked her to weave more and more clothes, completely oblivious to her deteriorating health. one day, he even decided to peak in and see how the hell she's doing all this. he opened the door and saw an ill-looking crane plucking off the last of its beautiful feathers...the crane saw him and flew away never to come back.
beautiful story, hey?
the album is poppy but pretty. i have a soft spot for the decemberists, so i forgive them the duet with laura veirs, whom i wouldn't mind if she'd kept to herself.
goodnight, internet. i'm going to bed.
1 comment:
This reminds me of an israeli song, called Japanese Tale.. it's about a hunter who woke up one morning and strung his bow. Throughout the entire day he was unlucky, and at night, walking through a forest, came to a river, where he saw two beautiful white swans. He shot one of them with his bow.
That night, in his dream, was a beautiful young woman, holding a feather. All night, in the hunter's dream, the woman cried about her fallen lover. She asked him why her lover deserved to die, and told him to come back to the river tomorrow.
When the hunter went back to the river the next day, the swan saw him, teared at his flesh, and then fell besides him.
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