THE MAIDEN HIND

Words: traditional Danish

Music and arrangement ©2009 Gordon Bok

 

Gordon – vocal and Viol da Gamba

Carol – vocal

 

This song speaks from a time when we were much more closely connected to the other animals, who have been—and still are—our best teachers of the ways to live in this world.

 

The mother to her son did say

In the greenwood

The little hind thou shalt not slay

That bears the band of gold

 

You may slay the hart and shoot the doe

But the little hind thou must let go

 

Sir Peter rode in greenwood bound

And the little hind played before his hound

 

The little hind sported his feet before

And he thought on his mother’s words no more

 

He spanned his crossbow with hand and knee

And he shot the hind beside a tree

 

His gloves from off his hands he drew

To flay* the hind without ado               *skin

 

Her neck he flayed and shining there

Was his sister’s golden hair

 

He has found in her bosom cold

His little sister’s rings of gold

 

In her side with sore affright

He has found her hands so white

 

His hunting-knife to the ground he threw

Now has my mother’s tale come true!

 

Cold on the river falleth the rime*                   * ice crystals

There’s luck for the lad who can take it in time

 

Far the crane flieth up in the sky

Lucky the lad who from trouble can fly!

 

 

The Maiden Hind is recorded on the album Other Eyes