Thursday, September 5, 2013

The Source of the Title

“The drums do beat and the wars do alarm
The captain calls, we must obey
So farewell, farewell to Nova Scotia's charms
For it's early in the morning, I'll be far, far away”

is the 3rd verse from the song “Farewell to Nova Scotia” collected by noted Maritime folklorist Helen Creighton.

The Captain Calls will be devoted my older armies. These are the forces that I amassed before I started to write Captain's Blog. To be honest most of the miniatures will predate the World Wide Web as we know it.  I also plan to exhibit armies that I blogged about over a number of posts and or even years, in a tight format with new photos.

For example both the Trajanic Roman Army, or "The Tragics" come to mind, as does my WWII 20mm Imperial Japanese. I suspect over two thirds of the Romans were painted long before I started blogging and I want to show off the army in its entirety.

The Source of the Title: The Captain Calls

According to Wikipedia Farewell to Nova Scotia is a popular folk song from Nova Scotia of unknown authorship. Versions of the song were collected by folklorist Helen Creighton, first in 1933 from Ann Greenough in Petpeswick, Nova Scotia, and then from other singers in surrounding communities along the province's Eastern Shore. It is believed to have been written just prior to or during the First World War.

In the late 1950s Dr. Creighton recorded my maternal grandfather (Augustine MacDonald) playing the bagpipes, singing in both English and Gaelic, and telling both folktales and ghost stories. He died in 1960 when I was 4 years old, living in BC, without every meeting him.

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