Hexwood: House of Flint

Disclaimer: this is a not-for-profit tribute to the work of the late Diana Wynne Jones

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Hexwood filk: Mordion in isolation, before the events of the book – one of a set of four filk-songs I wrote in the mid 1990s to accompany the book Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones. This one is decidedly ose, on the traditional fannish scale of ose, morose and more morose. For those who have come here because you are following me as a writer, rather than because you have read Hexwood (although if you haven't, you really should), a summary of the background to the story can be found here.

House of Flint
Tune and about 40% of the words: traditional, from the nonsense-song Nottamun Town

On the world of my birth that I'd call my own,
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down;
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
To show me my way to the house of the stone.

And when I got there the folk I did see,
They all stood around just a-looking at me.
I longed for a word to drive madness away
To stifle my pain – not a word would they say.

My father a slave, who never was free;
My mother was killed for the bearing of me.
My kind by machines from our mothers are torn –
A thousand years' Servants who never were born.

I was raised in fear, in a service unkind
That tearéd my hide, and tortured my mind.
Though I mean no man harm, I am bound to obey;
I'm dressed up in scarlet and sent out to slay.

And my lords in their power, and the company more
Come a-riding behind, and a-walking before.
In my heart is defiance and mocking and hate;
I bow and I crawl and I speak them all sweet.

Sat down to rest in the house of cold stone:
Though many stood round me yet I was alone.
Took my heart in my hand for to keep myself warm:
So many I've killed – would that I'd not been formed.

On the world of my birth that I'd call my own,
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down;
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
To show me my way to the house of the stone.