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It's a song of the north country you want? I have many. Will you hear of water-horses, or little folk, or brigands, or the Mill of Borroughby?
A true story. Ah, so you don't believe in water-horses or little folk. Or is it mills you doubt? No, never mind. Most folk say that, but they believe in water-horses most truly when they happen upon one. I'll grant that those who mind their manners and use the sense they were born with don't happen upon water-horses very often, nor little folk either.
So you've a mind to go to the north country yourself.
Well, that's different.
If you go to seek your fortune, then take heart, for there are fortunes aplenty to be found, and those who said so told you true.
In that land, the things that men bury have a way of coming to light again. Treasure, indeed; and truths; and even bones.
Keeping hold of them may be a different matter.
I'll give you a warning and tell you a tale; both at once, for that's my art. It's as true as an arrow shot through an apple, honest as a babe with eyes still closed.
But it'll open your eyes, right enough.
I was on the road one day, and the road took me to the river, and I went down along the riverbank to the mill, for I knew of a ferryman there.
But what should pass me, sailing down the river? It was a sownder of seven swans, swimming close together - what is also known as a lamentation. That's a powerful sign, and it can mean good or ill. This one was not hard to tell the meaning of, for between the swans there floated a woman - drowned dead - her face ghastly, but her hair spread out like gold thread upon the water. And the swans, they steered her down the river as solemnly as if they'd been given a charge from the King himself.
There are kings and Kings, in the north country.
And I'll swear to you: the woman was singing, though I could not make out the words before she floated away downstream.
I kept on walking, for I was curious, and in the distance, I saw the swans in the sky. By this I knew that the woman had come to shore.
It was by the mill that she lay. The mill-folk had brought her ashore, and laid her on a trestle for to dry her fine clothes. She was singing no longer, her flesh swollen horribly. A drowned body's not a pretty sight.
Nor is it pleasant to handle.
I do not know how to make a dead woman come to life and sing again. There's but one way I know to call up a song that must be sung: and that's with pipe or fiddle, harp or banjo or drum.
So I took the woman's body, and I made a harp of her.
Must be sung, I said, and though it damn me, I'll tell you there was no devil's charm laid on me. I saw what must be done, and I did it.
I am a harper, and I've a keen ear for tune and tale - and the eyes to see and the mind to know when I'm in a tale too, and must follow where it will lead me, or take it where it wishes to go.
That's the way of it, in the north country.
You ask - oh, no. No. This harp I play on now is not that one.
I would no more have kept that harp than keep an elf-lock or the cap of a red-cap powrie, or the devil's own chain.
But I made a harp, from breast-bone and finger-bone and the lady's golden hair, and when it was done, I strummed it, and listened to it hum.
"North," it told me in a woman's voice, and I made a case to hold it, and slung it on my back, and set out north.
It did not speak to me, or sing, except to guide my way; and though it kept tune passably well, I did not play on it, except to ask it whither I should go.
At last I came to a hall that the harp bid me enter in.
I took my place in the middle of the hall, before a rich farmer's family and his hired men; and there was an empty chair at the high table, between the farmer's daughters.
I strummed the harp once. That was all it needed.
Out rang the song that I had heard on the river, pure and sweet and harrowing. The song named the dead woman as the farmer's daughter, and accused her sister of drowning her, all for a swain they shared.
And I, I paled to hear it, along with all the rest.
When the harp fell silent, I feared for my life amid the angry crowd. The woman's will had been done, and her tale told. No spirit remained in the harp, and no hand of protection was raised over me.
But the door of the hall blew open, and the seven swans flew in. They landed all around me, and I needed no other sign. I fled the hall, and the furious folk therein, thronged about by swans.
They took me to the river, and so I must swim away; it lost me a good fiddle, but the woman's family did not follow me.
I know not what they did with that harp, and whether it was buried or burned. I know not whether the sister swung for her crimes, or the faithless swain.
But I know that the north country is no place for those who have evil they wish to hide. The very land will speak against them, in the names of those done wrong.
That is my warning: go to the north country if you will, for it's a brave land, though it is wild. But you'd best travel light of heart. If it's from your past you're running, then go another way, for it'll arrive there ahead of you, and poison all your days. Give and it will be returned to you; take unearned, and you'll be taken in turn.
And one day, I may sing of you.