Fantasia on the Dawn Treader
What are King Edmund and King Caspian laughing about on the Dawn Treader? Missing moment from VotDT.
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"Hello!" said Lucy, as she scrambled off the ladder onto the poop deck of the Dawn Treader to find King Caspian and Edmund leaning on the side, looking back at the ship's wake. "What are you boys laughing about?"
Caspian looked round, and moved over to make space for Lucy at the rail. "King Edmund was instructing me in-"
"-some finer points of sea-faring," Edmund finished hastily.
"No," said Lucy.
"What do you mean, 'no'?" her brother demanded.
"No, I am not going away and leaving you two in peace, until you come up with some more specific explanation of why you are both leaning off the rear of the ship, both red in the face and both quite puffed."
Edmund surrendered with a laugh. "None of our sea-shanties seem to have survived the centuries," he explained. "And as those are as important to a well-ordered ship as the rigging, I was just teaching Caspian a few, so he can pass them on."
"All we seem to have are the Calormen ones," said Caspian.
"Oh, I remember those," said Lucy with half a shudder. "They're really dreary; they go 'Hi, yi hi, hi yi-he-yi-hee!' over and over again." She shook her head. "No, you want proper Narnian sea-shanties to go sailing with. What's Ed teaching you? The Gale in Glasswater? Or Lone Island Lament?"
King Edmund grinned. "Actually, I was starting with something a bit more … essential." He whistled a few quick notes.
"Honk honk!" Lucy crowed at the end. "That's not a Narnian sea-shanty!"
"We used to sail to it!" Edmund objected merrily. "Peter used to whistle it whenever he was planning a voyage!"
"What is it?" Caspian begged, and the two Pevensies turned back to face him.
"Diddle diddle diddle, diddle diddle, honk honk," said Lucy fluently.
"Lu!" Edmund wailed. "That's no way to put it!"
"Well, I can't whistle any more! I grew out of it, it wasn't queenly. So I'm like the fauns, I say diddle-diddle instead." Lucy shrugged. "Simple."
Caspian blinked, as if this conversation was getting a bit beyond him. "Like the fauns?"
"Fauns can't whistle," Edmund explained. "They just can't. They drum, they play the pipes, but they cannot whistle. Lucy used to spend hours trying to teach Master Tumnus."
"Including Honk-honk," Lucy added reminiscently.
"Including what?" Eustace enquired, arriving at that moment on the poop deck.
"This tune, sea-shanty, whatever, that King Edmund is trying to instruct me in," Caspian explained. "Besides enlightening me about the musical abilities of fauns, which I had not yet had time to analyse."
Edmund grinned, and whistled the tune again. "Fantasia on British Sea-songs," said Eustace instantly. "Arranged by Sir Henry Wood, in 1905, to commemorate the battle of Trafalgar. The Hornpipe section. That's what it is. Which is, of course," he added, sounding rather embarrassed to have turned back into a walking encyclopedia, "not what it is."
"No," Lucy agreed. "It's diddle diddle diddle, diddle diddle, honk honk."
"They put it on the wireless every autumn," said Edmund. "For the prom concerts-"
Lucy nodded. "And then the orchestra plays it faster and faster, and the prommers – the audience – try to go faster and faster than them, and they race-"
Edmund broke in with a whistle, and Lucy dropped all explanation to act the prom-goer and beat time on the gunwale: "Diddle diddle diddle, diddle diddle, honk honk; Diddle diddle diddle, diddle diddle, honk honk..."
Faster and faster they raced, while Caspian laughed and Eustace nodded time. "Diddle diddle diddle, diddle diddle, honk honk; diddle-diddle-diddle diddle – Cheeeeet!" Lucy squealed, as Edmund's string of notes blended into a single squeak. "Cheat!"
"Ooow-weee!" Edmund broke off and rubbed his jaw. "Lucy! Now I've got cramp from whistling that fast!"
"That's why the orchestra always wins," Eustace observed. "Piccolos don't get jaw-ache."
Edmund chuckled and turned to Caspian. "Peter can do it faster than me, but that's the gist of it."
"That's quite fast enough for me," said Caspian, shaking his head. "But very catchy. Come on, then," he added determinedly. "Before Drinian comes up here and wants the poop deck back for something sensible." Caspian straightened his mouth back from laughter into a shape for whistling. "If your Majesties could begin again from the beginning – Slowly...!"
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A/N 1: And with GREAT relief ... story stats down for 10 days, entire account gone for 3 ... but here, at last, a new fic! :)
A/N 2: September, and the Last Night of the Proms approaches! If anyone wondered what the young Lord Mavramorn was whistling in 'Mine Eyes Have Seen', now you know. If you do not know the Fantasia on British Sea Songs, go to Spotify or YouTube or such, right away!The Calormen sea-shanty is as close as I can render to a bona fide Arabian sailing chant, and YES, I am still working on the other Narnian fics. It's just … imagine a large, happy, musical, nautical plot bunny (mine's got floppy ears and a Breton cap). Now, try ignoring it... :P