History
The Otherworld has existed in Irish folklore for centuries, passed down through both Pagan and Christian stories of adventure, voyages to Otherworld lands, and visions of mist filled forestscapes where faeries and other mythical creatures exist. The music of the Otherworld has played a prominent part in these stories, from lulling unsuspecting people to sleeping […]
You learned them when you were young, you sung them to your children, you may even have fond memories of Humpty Dumpty, three blind mice, or a (baa baa) black sheep, but these stories aren’t what you thought they were. Behind the sing song meter, gentle voice, and light music that accompanies many nursery rhymes […]
There are many epic people in history, some heroes, some not, Attila the Hun is not a hero, but he sure was epic. Murray Dahm at medievalists.net writes about who he was, what he did, and as part of the lengthy article goes into detail on film, plays, operas and the many musical numbers created […]
Everybody is familiar with many of the films created about Joan of Arc, but there have been a number of musicals and operas created that delve into and expand on the stories and history of the heroine in music form. Murray Dahm at medievalists.net put together an exhaustive list, from the 2017 musical film Jeannette: […]
Via the wonderful CantApp, you can view a scan of an original manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, listen to the General Prologue in its original Middle English, and read along as the story is translated line by line to English. We’re big fans of “old documents” and this is a wonderful presentation of the one […]
King Arthur is familiar to everyone who loves medieval stories and to many so are the expanded stories of individual characters within Arthurian legend. One of those characters, Sir Gawain, has been written about extensively, particularly his quest against The Green Knight in two famous 14th century poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and […]
Heroes and Mortals recently paid visit to Wyrd Leatherworks and Meadery, a Viking themed venue for fine leatherwork and even finer mead and we very highly recommend a visit if you live in or are just plundering through Portland. That got us thinking of the genres of Viking-themed music (of which there are many) and […]
Everyone loves Arthurian legend and we’re well steeped in it’s lore here at Heroes and Mortals. Much of that is because we’re avid readers of Medievalists.net, one of the most popular sources for medieval lore, history, art, and content online. Author James Turner at medievalists.net just wrapped up an 8-part series titled “In Search of […]
If the internet is good for anything, it’s going down rabbit holes of the odd things people find and post online. Today’s ventures ended up at this article from ArtNet a few years ago about a piece of music in the 15th Century Hieronymus Bosch painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. Look closely at the poor […]
The devil’s tritone, the devil’s interval, in Latin, diabolus in musica (translated as “the Devil in Music”), or modern tritones such as “the augmented fourth” or “diminished fifth”, is a musical tone said to have been the sound of the devil himself. It consists of a specific set of three tones (a triad which consists […]
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