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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. 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 1980s. Ft. Sill oddly enough is the home of the US Army's Field Artillery branch.
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