Snowflake Challenge #12-#15

[regshoe]

Challenge #12: Create a Rec Countdown.

How about some ballad recs? A non-comprehensive list of my slightly-less-well-known faves:

272. 'The Holland Handkerchief' or 'The Suffolk Miracle': traditional lyrics; Mainly Norfolk info page; recording by Alasdair Roberts. This is one of my favourite ghost ballads, with very effective use of specific detail for a creepy twist.

215½. 'Annan Water': traditional lyrics; Mainly Norfolk info page; a recording by Kate Rusby. A solemn, touching and rather mysterious tragedy, lovely in its sense of inevitable doom.

213. 'Sir James the Rose': traditional lyrics; recording by Steeleye Span. This one's just a really good adventure story—murder, flight, betrayal, punctilious but rather pointless Honour, a gory ending—and Bob Johnson performs it with the enjoyable gusto he always brings to this kind of song.

14. 'Bonnie Banks o Fordie': traditional lyrics; info from Mainly Norfolk; recording by Old Blind Dogs. A proper bloody murder ballad with a cruelly ironic twist ending; I especially like this tune and arrangement.


Challenge #13: Interact with someone in fandom you haven't talked with before. Done!


Challenge #14: In your own space, create your own fandom challenge.

Natural history is a fandom; it also goes well with story-based fandom, I think. So my challenge is in two parts:

1) Find a wild species (anything: bird, wildflower, insect, fungus, etc.) that you can't already identify on sight/sound, and—using whatever suitable resources are available: books, the internet, asking knowledgeable people—identify it.
2) Incorporate this species into a fanwork. E.g. you could describe it in a fic, use it as a motif in a piece of art, make an icon by overlaying a quote from your canon on a photo of it, use a recording of its song in the background of a podfic...


Challenge #15: Talk about an unexpected joyous moment you experienced last year.

Reading my Yuletide recipient's prompts for the first time! The Warm Hands of Ghosts wasn't something I expected to feel very confident about writing for, but I read those Laura/Pim feelings and ideas and went ':D :D well then, I'm doing this!'. I love how fandom in general and exchanges in particular can do that, and it's nice to think of it while pondering what exchanges I might sign up for this year.

Comments

[pronker]

Loved the songs!

[regshoe]

:D

[scintilla10]

Oooh, thank you for the songs.

Love your natural history challenge. :D

[regshoe]

Thank you :D My current WIP is set somewhere with a much more interesting flora than I can observe in my garden in January, so I may not manage it immediately, but we'll see.

[kiestan]

omg i love your natural history challenge. i'll do it the next time i get out of the house! (soon) and the idea of incorporating it into a piece of work excites me so much.

i'm also listening to the recording of "the holland hankerchief" that you linked and it's so soothing. when i find some time i'd like to go through the lyrics properly. what a vibe <3

[regshoe]

Aww, thank you. I hope you enjoy doing the challenge :D

I do like that recording! That kind of simple style can work really well for a spooky story in the lyrics like this, I think.