Spider Song

This is from something of an epic story poem I’m writing called Peter the Pirate: the Commodore’s Journey. It’s over a hundred pages long so far and written in ballad form except for the songs. Some people who have followed my blog for a long time might be familiar with the two Peter the Pirate Christmas stories I have published in audio form. I started telling Peter the Pirate stories when my son was a little boy and we would play with his Playmobile pirates together. The stories grew a bit more serious for me and have become a lifelong project. I’m thinking that I’m about eighty percent of the way, but have been having trouble with the ending though I know where I want to go with it—a lot like my own life.

Here’s the song with an excerpt from the story as well. I’ve tried to weave several myths together Ananzi, a trickster from Africa, Arachne, from the Greeks, Spider Woman, from a great many Native American cultures, and Taawa’s Grandmother Spider from the Hopi. The last one I take from Brian Swan’s collection of stories about a boy who finds out his father is the Sun God, and goes on a journey to find him with help from many creatures, most importantly, Spider Woman.

In this episode Peter the Pirate is being led by a spirit through a tunnel of webbing has been woven by spiders. Spiders link all realms and the spirit is taking him to a place where the living and the dead may meet. It is a journey into the underworld. The spirit sings this song as he leads the way and Peter follows.

O, does a spider bite and sting

And so is she an evil thing?

Yea, some spiders may be bad

And yet they serve to make us glad

Hey, ho,we find a hold

From the new born to the old

Yo, ho, we throw a thread

From the living to the dead

Ananzi tricked the god of sky

And stories now to earth do fly

So think of him next time you read

To your child some hero’s deed.

Hey, ho, we find a hold

From the newborn to the old.

Yo, ho, throw a thread

From the living to the dead.

Spider woman wove the world

And thus the cosmos was unfurled

Connecting stars, and earth, and sun

And so all things were thus begun.

Hey, ho, find a hold

From the newborn to the old .

Yo, ho, throw a thread

From the living to the dead.

And could Athena’s jealousy

With proud Arachne’s tapestry

Be relieved by punishment?

Nay, now her threads are better sent.

Hey, ho, we find a hold

From the newborn to the old.

Yo, ho, we throw a thread

From the living to the dead.

And where would young Taawa be,

When he ,the sun god, went to see,

If Grandma Spider had not known

The way to where his father shone.

Hey, ho, we find a hold

From the newborn to the old

Yo, ho, we throw a thread

From the living to the dead

So spiders dance a sailor’s jig,

As from deck to cap they rig

With stays and shrouds and ratlines lay

The ropes for us to climb this way.

Hey, ho, we find a hold

From the newborn to the old

Yo, ho, we have a thread

From the living to the dead.