Songs for Closing Ceremonies

The Chorea Magna

The Mythopoeic Society anthem, sung to the tune of "Simple Gifts"

The Dance is the singing of the stars at their birth,
The Dance is a tree with its roots in utmost earth,
The Dance is the gamboling of balls in a game,
With their source a hand, and their end the same.

Chorus: Dare, then, the measure of the Dance,
Follow the Fool in his reckless fall,
In his madness, joy, his destiny in chance,
For all luck is good and the Naught is all!

The Dance knows the wounding that the earth cannot heal,
The Dance knows the weight and the flaming of the wheel,
The Dance knows the binding to the stake torched at dawn -
But the Dancers, stilled, still go dancing on.

Chorus: Dare, then, the measure of the Dance,
Follow the Fool in his reckless fall,
In his madness, joy, his destiny in chance,
For all luck is good and the Naught is all!

The Dance is a Lion and a Child locked in play,
The Dance is a feast on a royal wedding day,
The Dance is a city where the time-scattered meet,
And the Glory blazes in each complete.

Chorus: Dare, then, the measure of the Dance,
Follow the Fool in his reckless fall,
In his madness, joy, his destiny in chance,
For all luck is good and the Naught is all!

---

The Baby and The Bird

copyright 1976 by Diana L. Paxson

Please see David Bratman's transcription of Diana's melody, below

Old Rome had many taverns
Devoted to the vine,
Where Ovid pledged each new love
In red Falernian wine;
Catullus, shamed by Lesbia,
Poured out his grief in verse;
Apuleus noted follies,
And pondered which was worse.

Chorus:
But the place that draws me ever
When my fancy's running wild,
Is a little pub in Oxford
Called The Eagle and the Child,
The Eagle and the Child, oh,
Or else, as I have heard
Its regulars all called it--
The Baby and the Bird!

The company was lively
In Soutwark's Tabard Inn,
When Chaucer and the Pilgrims
Were telling tales within,
And on the Canterbury road
They took that April day,
And at the other hostels
Where they stayed upon their way.

Chorus:
But the place that draws me ever
When my fancy's running wild,
Is a little pub in Oxford
Called The Eagle and the Child,
The Eagle and the Child, oh,
Or else, as I have heard
Its regulars all called it--
The Baby and the Bird!

When Villon, gutter-poet,
Reeled through the Paris night,
Drunk on verse and hypocras
And looking for a fight,
The Pomme de Pin, the Cheval Blanc
All welcomed him, and more,
With wine at every table
And doxies at each door.

Chorus:
But the place that draws me ever
When my fancy's running wild,
Is a little pub in Oxford
Called The Eagle and the Child,
The Eagle and the Child, oh,
Or else, as I have heard
Its regulars all called it--
The Baby and the Bird!

Of all the City's taverns,
When Bess was England's Queen,
The Mermaid, undisputed, ruled
The literary scene.
Each Global play was played again
And christened in brown ale,
Whde Shakespeare, or Ben Jonson,
Stood up to tell the tale.

Chorus:
But the place that draws me ever
When my fancy's running wild,
Is a little pub in Oxford
Called The Eagle and the Child,
The Eagle and the Child, oh,
Or else, as I have heard
Its regulars all called it--
The Baby and the Bird!

Augustan wits made merry
At London's Cheshire Cheese--
The topic was no matter,
So that the manner please--
Be it Love or Politicks,
'Twas scandalous, I've heard,
And Johnson had his Boswell
To write down every word.

Chorus:
But the place that draws me ever
When my fancy's running wild,
Is a little pub in Oxford
Called The Eagle and the Child,
The Eagle and the Child, oh,
Or else, as I have heard
Its regulars all called it--
The Baby and the Bird!

They sing of famous taverns,
But considering them all,
The one where I had rather
Been a fly upon the wall,
Would be the Inn where Tolkien,
Lewis, Williams too,
Met with the other Inklings
Asking, "Who has something new?"

Chorus:
But the place that draws me ever
When my fancy's running wild,
Is a little pub in Oxford
Called The Eagle and the Child,
The Eagle and the Child, oh,
Or else, as I have heard
Its regulars all called it--
The Baby and the Bird!

---

The final song at Closing Ceremonies requires the members of the conference to soberly consider the highs and lows of the Mythcon passed and respond in verse to the timeless question, "what do you do with a Drunken Hobbit?"

Way hey, the Mythcon's over
Way hey, the Mythcon's over
Way hey, the Mythcon's over - earli in the morning!