Language, Legends, and Music

     "...'Legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition."  ~J.R.R. Tolkien

     I recently came across this quote in a collection of Tolkien's letters, and it set me thinking.  I quite agree with Tolkien; language and legends are closely entwined together, and a language without legends and fairy-stories is a dead one.  However, I think that there is another thing that is entwined with language and legends, which Tolkien has forgotten: music.

     As one cannot imagine a story without words, or words that tell no stories, it is impossible to imagine a song without music.  For a long, long time, stories were told with songs.  From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to the Medieval English, music and story-telling were closely connected.

     Close your eyes and imagine an ancient Greek poem being recited.  Listen closely, and surely you will hear a lyre being played.  Now imagine Beowulf being told; nay, not only told, but sung by a bard, as you will surely hear if you but listen closely in your imagination.  It is hard to picture a story being told in ancient times without music.

     In other ways, too, is music connected with stories and words.  Stories, words, and music are all capable of creating feeling.  As a story can paint a picture, or make the reader feel joy, sorrow, hope, despair, courage, cowardice, &c., so can words--and music.  Perhaps the only difference is that while words and stories paint, for the most part, the same pictures and create the same feelings for everyone, music is more personal.  A piece of music might mean something different to all who hear it.  Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony" paints for me a stag leaping through deep green woods, a fox running through the underbrush, a bear suddenly crashing through the bushes.  It makes me feel, at different times, joy, fear, love, and sorrow.  But doubtless for others, the "New World Symphony" paints much different pictures and creates much different feelings.  However, for all who hear it, it must create some pictures or feelings--just as words and stories do.

     Music, stories, words--all are entwined together in a tight bond that cannot be broken.  The relationship between these three things brings to mind the ending of "A Celtic Tale", a recording of a retelling of the legend of Deirdre by Mychael and Jeff Danna (narrated by Fiona Ritchie).  The tale ends with two trees, growing from the graves of the ill-fated lovers Deirdre and Naoise, becoming tightly entwined together over time.  Except that the trees of legends, language, and music, are three, not ill-fated; and the trees grow not from the graves of dead and forgotten things but from living traditions.