https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CBIdd0JJ3M
Marianne Faithfull & Nick Cave - The Crane WifeAlbum:
The Crane Wife (2006)
Artist:
The DecemberistsAnd under the boughs unbowed
All holding a snowy shroud
She had no heart so hardened
All under the boughs unbowed
Each feather it fell from skin
'Til thread bare and she grew thin
How were my eyes so blinded?
Each feather it fell from skin
And I will hang my head, hang my head low
And I will hang my head, hang my head low
A grey sky, with bitter skin
A rain cloud, would rain on me
All out beyond horizon, ohh
A grey sky, of bitter skin
And I will hang my head, hang my head low
And I will hang my head, hang my head low (X4)
And under the boughs unbowed
All holding a snowy shroud
She had no heart so hardened
All under the boughs unbowed
The story of The Crane Wife |
The Crane Wife is an old Japanese folktale. While there are many variations of the tale, a common version is that a poor man finds an injured crane on his doorstep (or outside with an arrow in it), takes it in and nurses it back to health. After he releases the crane, a woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries.
Because they need money, his wife offers to weave wondrous clothes out of silk that they can sell at the market, but only if he agrees never to watch her making them. They begin to sell them and live a comfortable life, but he soon makes her weave them more and more. Oblivious to his wife's diminishing health, his greed increases. He eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is a crane plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into the loom.
The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns. |
