'Til Funerals

‘And on she goes

Yes she goes

On she goes yes she goes

Until funerals

 

She loved her man well

Whose wrongs would she tell

Don’t tell no

Don’t tell

‘Til funerals

 

And will minds come to rest

Countless fires be repressed

They shan’t no

They shan’t

Until funerals

 

Yes no yes no yes

No yes no no yes

On an’ on

On an’ on

‘Til funerals

 

Come you young fellows stiff

There’s no wan you can sniff

No wan no

No wan

Until funerals.’

 

‘No wan?’

Littlewood hadn’t noticed Katrine sneaking up behind him while he was singing.  He was starboard with the fly-rod out, hoping to scoop up one of those cocky salmon and make a decent supper of it.

‘No-one,’ he told her.

‘A person?’

‘Yep.’

‘Strange song.  Who would want to sniff a person?’

‘There are plenty back there in the world right now sniffing each other up and down – I bet you.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  Some people have a fine fragrance about them.’

‘And many more do not.’

‘True.  But you generally know to keep away from them ones.’

Katrine knew the song had a kind of bawdiness about it, but she decided to play it down for now.   She’d seen the Captain awkward in her company before, but now he seemed quite happy to discuss sexual fetishes.  Or perhaps behaviours such as olfactophilia were perfectly normal in the sexuality of the Irish. 

 ‘I suppose it’s a ballad of the sea, yes?’ she asked him.

‘’Tis.  Land too,’ he responded.  ‘Sure that’s where you’ll get most of them.’

‘Most of what?’

‘Funerals,’ he said, reeling the line in and adding: ‘But you’ll get them out here too.’

‘I know only too well,’ she said, with a raised brow.

Littlewood turned, startled: ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘You didn’t offend.  This is our predicament.  My mother will have her funeral as a result of your efforts, so I am grateful.  We lost Walter, yes.’  Katrine stopped, scratched her head a bit then continued: ‘But we have nearly reached this island.  Burying my mother is now the most important thing.  And her burial on that land can serve as a tribute to Walter.  He was even more driven to see her wish carried out than me.  Just as long as there’s no sniffing the body during interment.  That would be most unusual.’

‘Not at all,’ exclaimed Littlewood.  ‘Why would anyone....?’

‘Well, it’s in your song.  I thought that’s what you fishermen liked to get up to.  There’s no-one you can sniff until funerals.’

‘No, no, no!’ objected Littlewood.  ‘That’s not what it means...’

‘What does it mean then?  It’s very strange.’

The Captain was perplexed; he hadn’t thought about it before.

‘I haven’t thought about it before,’ he said.

Add necrophilia to olfactophilia then, she thought to herself.  These Irish and their urges.