h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I had never heard of this opera by Arthur Sullivan and Basil Hood before, but check out songs 11 and 12, where the English troops make much of their origins in "Devon, happy Devon". Not much to do with the topic of this board, but it's been quiet lately, and it came as a surprise to me, because I was unfamiliar with the piece in question.

http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/other_sullivan/html/emerald_home.html

Nxylas,

Molly argues how to how to scare the soldiers away from the hiding place of the rebel leader on the basis of Devon beliefs in fairies and uses the local Irish fairy legend of Fairy Cleena, who is said to occupy the caves.

MOLLY. This way. I have thought how to keep Carrig-Cleena clear of the soldiers. They are mostly men from Devonshire, and they say such are mighty afraid of fairies. We'll tell them the tales of the place bein' haunted. We'll tell them how the Fairy Cleena catches all the good-lookin' boys and keeps them sleepin' and dreamin' for fifty years.

She is exploiting a perceived cultural similarity between the Devon soldiers and the local Irish, although the Devon men are denounced as ‘Saxons’.

But, more seriously, note the attitude of the Sergeant;

SERGEANT. The Sergeant he may come recruiting once more,
CHORUS. With a bimble and bumble and the best of 'em
SERGEANT. There will always be Devonshire men for the war.

This reminded me of an article I read in the Guardian some time ago about British military recruitment;

“its [army recruitment’s] core areas remain those politically unfashionable places where multiculturalism is a distant, exotic idea - Staffordshire, Tyne and Wear, the valleys of South Wales, Devon and Cornwall, and south-east Scotland.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,1700157,00.html

Part of the article’s argument being that the army fails to recruit white middle class people, and only meets its recruitment targets in poor ethnic minority groups or poor mainly white areas like Cornwall, Devon, north-eastern England or Wales where joining the army still seems like good employment compared to the local jobs on offer.

Back to the story in The Emerald Isle, and what it suggests to me. Poor rural men (the Devon soldiers) offered spurious notions of wealth and career by imperialists to oppress and terrorise other poor rural people like themselves (the Irish). Nothing much seems to have changed in the 100 years since it was written.

ExeValleyBoy, I agree with your assesment.

Just a quick aside, the Welsh, Scots and Irish have always refered to the English as the Saxons (vz the Scottish term Sassenach) rather than the more commonly used Angles. Also the fourth verse of the Irish national anthem (The Soldiers Song/Amhran na bhFiann) reads thus:

Sons of the Gael! Men of the Pale!
The long watched day is breaking;
The serried ranks of Inisfail
Shall set the Tyrant quaking.
Our camp fires now are burning low;
See in the east a silv'ry glow,
Out yonder waits the Saxon foe,
So chant a soldier's song.

Once again refereing to the enemy as the Saxons. I would take it in the play the term "Saxon" is used simply as a term for the "English oppressor" and could have been used against soldiers from Cornwall and Wales in the same shorthand, you wear the oppressors uniform, you take the oppressors name.

Verse 4 of the Irish anthem, like certain verses of the Deutschlandlied and even God Save the Queen are no longer played.

It is (perhaps) noticeable that in the referenced play, whilst the Irish characters call the Devonian soldiers "Saxon" on numerous occaisions, the Devonians never refer to themselves as such.

Deliberate wordplay or otherwise??

Was the term a put down or not??

>>It is (perhaps) noticeable that in the referenced play, whilst the Irish characters call the Devonian soldiers "Saxon" on numerous occaisions, the Devonians never refer to themselves as such.

>>Deliberate wordplay or otherwise??

Given the period the operetta was written (the late 19th century), probably otherwise.

>>Was the term a put down or not??

The Irish obviously thought so, though I doubt the English of the time would agree.

>>She is exploiting a perceived cultural similarity between the Devon soldiers and the local Irish

Well, belief in the fairy folk, nature spirits etc. is hardly unique to the Celts. It is (or was) common to rural cultures worldwide. The word "pagan" originally meant country dweller, after all.

Nxylas,

“Well, belief in the fairy folk, nature spirits etc. is hardly unique to the Celts. It is (or was) common to rural cultures worldwide.”

This is true, nevertheless fairy legends are strongly associated with Celtic cultures, Ireland of course being an excellent example of this. Cornwall and Devon, with their famous Pixie legends, are a part of this culture. If you doubt that Devon has Celtic traditions, the role of Pixies in Cornish folklore strongly suggests that our West Country fairy has Celtic roots.

The old traditions live on, Shebbear and Ottery St Mary have a “Pixie Day”. In Ottery St Mary this celebrates the banishment of the Pixies from the village to caves outside the village.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixie_Day