COMFORT NOTCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY
SING THE SONGS & RECITE THE RECOLLECTIONS
Songs, stories, poems, prayers, and recollections keep our history alive and relevant. The oral tradition of our most sacred charge, the keeper of all secrets , are hidden in leaves and in letters. The letters that are woven together in a brilliant tapestry of our history is what keeps us whole – and alive in prosperity.
As a citizen of Comfort Notch, you are bound to our traditions and our way of life. You cannot escape Comfort Notch. It lives in your bones and runs in your blood. The deep of the forest permeates your dreams, and its Autumnal leaves haunt your waking life. Each and every one of us knows that, as long as we hold tight to tradition and uphold the promise, the Forest will provide for us. For all eternity.
MERRY CLEMENTINE
(The oldest Comfort Notch children’s rhyming song)
Biddle, Biddle, soft and merry
From a seed, a child she carried.
Girl of beauty, girl of grace
But Daddy would not claim her face
Baby’s crib, opened wide
Daddy sends a pig inside…
Chomps and smacks and swallows down
Biddle’s scream the only sound
Lightning, thunder, ax, and knife
Fifty whacks, she takes a life
Fifty more, she takes another
Murderess now instead of mother
Head and hair and bone and blood
Turn stone and leaf and tree and mud
Watch your feet now, watch your nose
Biddle, Biddle, there she grows
SHE LIVES IN THE LEAVES
(Author unknown – Comfort Notch 1898)
The legend is told
Of a forest maiden so bold.
Beautiful and sweet
A site to behold.
Wrapped in leaves
A love she sees.
Brave of heart
Quick of mind
Daughter of the forest
A new life she finds.
Eyes for one
Plans unbound.
Deceit by both
Turned away
Without a betroth
Welcomed back by the leaves
To fury she cleaves
Seed planted, nurtured, and born
Trappings of decency
Excuses well worn
Pleas for the good
Turned away with scorn
Back to the woods
To her a child of leaves is born
Hate and pain
In blood and bone
Seeds of suffering
In the earth are sown
Alive with a combination of bark and skin
The mother and child
Call trees their kin.
From the life within the woods and leaves
Hope of reconciliation she believes
Return to the town she goes
Rejection and hatred she receives
In her fury, blood and revenge now flows.
Absorb the pain
Expect a price
Notch must offer sacrifice
For continued success and wealth
To them they expect happiness and health
She whispers,
And watches
She makes the choice
From the leaves she calls,
Rustle her voice.
“You are the one,
My child you are chosen.
You cannot run,
This is the pact unbroken.”
From the deep of the earth
To the blue of the sky
From the green of the wood
To the blaze of the fire
Amidst the cry.
Sacrifice by one
Not in vain
the time is nigh
Only vengeance remains.
In the green,
In the red,
In the gold.
The ritual continues
To her we must hold.
Cradled in limbs
Rocked by the boughs
Wrapped by the vines
These are our vows.
Trees are the life, the blood, the way
Screams in the night
And the light of the day
This cycle now ends
Through a mother’s love and pain
Wrath and destruction rends
Our earthly domain.
She is renewed
A new song is sung
The wise one awakes
Always be young.
She lives in the leaves
A new legend they weave
This is the truth
The people believe.
FALLEN
(Originally written in 1900 by the Most Reverend Jesper Barrick, Pastor of the First Church of Comfort Notch)
There is beauty in the Fallen.
Wisdom and color,
A continuation of Life.
It is said
That in being Fallen,
There is Death.
But what is Death?
Only the natural and logical continuation of Life.
In Life, as in Death , there is the Sacrifice.
There is the small, personal sacrifice,
And then there is the tightly-knit community Sacrifice.
The Sacrifice that holds us together.
No matter the Sacrifice, it always leaves a mark.
It cuts deep – to the bone, into the soul.
To cope, we must push down our pain, and realize it is for the greater good.
For your neighbors and community.
For those here and now, and for the future generations.
Does this make us a Fallen?
Perhaps so.
Perhaps not.
A uniform cool Green in the warmth of Summer
Slowly creeps into the change of the brilliant fire in the Autumn chill.
Dichotomy.
Balance.
Life.
Death.
Sacrifice.
Like the leaves, Fallen does not mean the End.
Rather, it is a continuation of Life.
ODE TO THE HONORED
(Delivered by the first mayor of Comfort Notch, Mayor Pauling Hardy during the first official Autumnal)
We honor you
The one who is chosen by Her
We revel in your sacrifice
For the continuance of the way of life in Comfort Notch
Without you, we are nothing.
You will live forever in song, in story, in stone.
Look away from the fire
Into the consuming dark of the wood
Eternal life is yours
As your blood feeds the ground
As your soul sustains the green
To you we give our thanks, as you take the next step.
PRAYER FOR THE DEAD
(originally penned by Most Reverend Jesper Barrick)
Your blood is the price of the covenant
We entered.
Your blood is our life.
Your soul is our sustenance.
Your bones the foundation of us all.
May your body be wrapped in the soft leaves of the vine, and
Cradled in the boughs of our Beloved on high.
Return to the Mother.
May She provide you eternal love,
Resting in a cushion of brilliance.
May your soul find rest and comfort
Knowing that your body returns to that from which it was born.
We thank you.
We love you.
We embrace you.
And so it is.