Shanty Alphabet... and divination???

There are so many wonderful bits of poetry and folklore to share with you all, but one that seems to tickly my fancy quite a bit is the ditty known as the Shanty Alphabet. That is an alphabet song which seems to be a mnemonic aid of sorts and spells out quite clearly the many things one could encounter upon the shanty. Being a Heathen, as I mentioned before a Germanic Pagan, I have always had a soft spot for the runes. For those who don’t know runes were a form of writing among the Germanic peoples prior to their adoption of the Latin alphabet. It is known that the runes had some sort of ritualistic or magical tone to them as well as they were frequently used in spell crafting. They were often mentioned in the poetry and even made into ‘rune songs’ or ‘rune poems’. Each rune represented a different value or thing… as does the Shanty Alphabet.

Another theorized use for them is for divination. In the work called Germania by Tacitus in the 1^st century, he mentions that the Germans cast lots and divined with pieces of fruit wood with marks upon them. Now, he did not specifically say ‘runes’, but as they were fond of divination… I am sure many would have approved today. I am also something of a syncretism hound. I love to push my heathen worldview through a Valley lenses. I fell more fulfilled in my undertakings to live my religion in a way that is congruent with how things were done in my region. So if the old lads of D’Valley gave us a fancy alphabet song that passed around the various camps… why not use them to DIVINE!

Here is the song as told in Shanty Songs and Recollections of the Upper Ottawa Valley:

This alphabet song was a favourite of Mr. Alfred Vincent
of Renfrew and was sung by him at every opportunity.
He would sing the verses and his young children would
answer with the chorus. Mr Vincent was born in 1888
and made shanty work his trade at the tender age of 15.
He has been deceased these pas three years (ca. 1980). 

Chorus:
So merry, so merry, so merry are we,
No mortals on earth are as happy as we.
So daring, so daring, so high darey down,
Give a shanty man whiskey and nothing goes wrong.

A is for the axes that through the bush ring, and
B is for the boys that never fears noise.
C is for the cutting we do every day, and
D is for the Danger we always are in.

E is for the echo that through the bush rings, and
F is for the foreman that handle our gang.
G is for the grindstone so big and so stout, and
H is for the handle that turns it about.

I is for the irons that mark our pine, and
J is for the jolly boys, never behind.
K is for the keen edges our axes do keep, and
L is for the lice that kept us from sleep.

M is for the moss that plugged our camps, and
N is for the needle that mended our pants.
O is for the owl that hooted at night, and
P is for the pine we always fall right.

Q is for the quarrels we did not allow, and,
R is for the river our timber does plough.
S is for the sleigh so big and so stout, and
T is for the teams that drew them about.

U is for the uses we put our horses through, and
V is for the valley we have to go through.
W is for the wages we received in the spring, and
X, Y and Z, we can’t put them in.

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In the old days the Fogrums of D’Valley were a superstitious lot. They saw signs and omens in all sorts of things. They saw them in the flight of birds, the churn of cream, the leaves upon the trees and wholly caterpillars… just as it was with the ancient Germanic people. So one could in theory, cut some tiles from some fruit bearing tree and mark the letters upon each, leaving out X, Y and Z or cramming them onto one tile as a ‘who the hell knows’ tile. They could then be cast or pulled and a reading could go like this:

A...D...Q... 'the Axe tells me that there is a split decision, the D informs me that it is an imprudent decision at best which will lead into Q or quarrel with another...'

Blundy