The Myth In The Music

When the night falls without warning
Another day will leave me torn
With my heart back where it's always been
Andy my body miles from home
My body miles from home...
Thorsten Kaye

Patrick and Margaret: Legendary Lovers

A Celtic Symphony

The story of Patrick Thornhart and Margaret Saybrooke is of such legendary proportions that it cries out for a suitable musical environment - and one based on Celtic mythology, since Professor Thornhart is an Irish professor of literature and poetry. While there are countless traditional Celtic tunes that could be employed to describe their tale in song, the Irish rock/folk group Horslips, in their THE BOOK OF INVASIONS: A CELTIC SYMPHONY CD, have captured in one album the nuances of Patrick and Margaret’s instantaneous connection with its peril, romance, grief, and joy.
If you are captivated by the story of Patrick and Margaret,
you will be captivated by this recording.

It is also a crash course in ancient Irish music and history. As THE BOOK OF INVASIONS explains, in the ancient times when the Tuatha de Danann, known for their magical lore, ruled ancient Ireland, there were three principal categories of song, called geantraí, goltrái, and suantrái—the joyous strain, the lamenting strain, and the sleep strain.

The first movement of THE BOOK OF INVASIONS, GEANTRAÍ--WHEN THE GODS WALKED THE EARTH, is the musical setting for the first and second battles of Magh Tuiredh where the Tuatha de Danann were triumphant over the Fir Bolg and Balor of the Evil Eye. (The forerunners of the Men of 21 and Carlo Hesser?) More information on these battles can be found in WOMEN IN CELTIC MYTH by Moyra Caldecott.

This leads into TROUBLE WITH A CAPITAL T with could easily have been Patrick’s theme song when he first came to Llanview:

….Trouble, trouble
I try to chase trouble but it’s chasing me
Trouble
Trouble with a capital T….Been so long away from home
I’ve almost made this place my own
Now it seems I’ll soon be gone
Moving on and all alone.

THE ROCKS REMAIN is reminiscent of Patrick’s timeless love for Margaret expressed on her wedding day:

Precious stones and stolen thrones vanish in a day
and your golden rings, your silver rings will crumble and decay
silks and satins and crimson velvet will someday fade away
but the stones will stand across the land and love will have its day.

In SWORD OF LIGHT a portrait of Patrick’s tangled relationship with Blair is echoed:

Wrap tight your cloak around me
And I’ll whisper close my dreams
My home is such a long way
And I’m older than I seem
I’ve come a long way with the good news
See you need my help
But don’t turn to me for guidance
I’m a stranger here myself.

In the 2ND MOVEMENT—GOLTRAÍ, THE PURSUIT OF DIARMID AND GRAINNE is the story of a love triangle of Diarmid, Grainne, and Fionn mac Cumhaill, whom Grainne is forced to marry against her will. Grainne elopes with Diarmid and their wanderings are filled with magic and adventure until one day Diarmid is mortally wounded by a magic boar. Fionn has the power to save him but, preferring revenge, lets Diarmid die. This is the possible forerunner to the romance of Tristan and Isolde—or does the triangle sound more like Dylan, Patrick, and Marty?—may Patrick and Margaret’s story not end this way as in THE WARM SWEET BREATH OF LOVE…

Let me ask you one question, was it really such a sin
To love too much, to be closer than touch when there was no way we could win
Ah and now I hear their voices, they’re closing in, but before they make their final move
Take me in your arms and let me feel it one more time
The warm sweet breath of love.

May their story have as its theme KING OF MORNING, QUEEN OF DAY:

With your face to the wind, you’re beginning to think of a new life
And you pull tight your cloak ‘round your throat and the wind starts to sing
Though we’re both on the run from a place in the sun and it’s raining
And there’s strangers and dangers and darkness we’re still going to win
So don’t you cry, don’t you fear, wipe away each lonely tear
If I were king of morning and you were queen of day
We’d love all summer long together, love would find a way
If I were king of evening and you were queen of night
We’d pass the time in pleasure, we’d love until the morning light
If I were king of pleasure and you were queen of pain
You would love me…As the rain starts to fall, I recall how it was in the good times
When the sun seemed to shine and the wine was a gift from above
But I know that the day’s on the way and it’s bringing the sunshine
So sing me a song, make it long, make it all about love.

As Patrick once told Margaret "It was rain that brought us together."

In the 3RD MOVEMENT—SUANTRAÍ/THE LIVING END, the Tuatha’s reign was ended when they were defeated by the Milesians—the sons of Mil--who may have come from Spain. The Tuatha managed to obtain concessions from them and the land was divided between them, with the Milesians (or Gaels) remaining overground and the Tuatha retreating undeground to live on as mystical, magical beings in the "hollow hill" or great burial mounds of ancient times.

This Celtic symphomy could have been
written for Patrick and Margaret.

In the introduction to Chapter 2 of the book THE FAIRY FAITH IN CELTIC COUNTRIES by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, first published in 1911, it is said "….all the banshees and all the human figures, white women, and so forth, who are seen in raths and moats and on hillsides, are the direct descendants, so to speak, of the Tuatha de Danann…of this there can be no doubt."

They sing of their fate in SIDEWAYS TO THE SUN:

We’re the mystery of the lake when the water’s still
We’re the laughter in the twilight
You can hear behind the hill
We’ll stay around to watch you laugh
Destroy yourselves for fun
But, you won’t see us, we’ve grown sideways to the sun.

THE BOOK OF INVASIONS ends with RIDE TO HELL--a chilling description of an entity who sounds alarmingly like Carlo Hesser:

…Some people say that he’s a fiend
A devil in disguise
He’ll promise love and happiness
Bright lights before your eyes
And still you know you can’t refuse
No matter what you think
You’ve just got to taste the glamour
Ovations as you sink…

May the story of Patrick and Margaret end with these words from THE ROCKS REMAIN.

I can see the lights below us twinkle like the stars
And I know they’re waiting patiently for the day to break again
Distant skies, distant eyes, change has come so fast
And a mother of pearl distant girl clutches at the past
But in the sunset I see your eyes and they tell me nothing’s lost
While the rocks remain, loves the same
Strong love will last.

Special to The Patrick Papers: © Christy Smith 1996. All rights reserved.