So. Here's another stupidly German thing I can't get out of my head.
There is this old, old song, a ballad, written 1900, which got its tune around 1920 and which used to be at the same time popular with youth groups and older folks and had a bad reputation because of possible nazi connections although, to be fair, it was just a popular song long before and fascists are excellent at using popular things for their purpose. The author, however, apparently was all for it.
So, I still just ignore the nazi angle here as my angle of interest is with the original and not the version the nazis added to their hitler youth song book anyway.
It's a song everybody knows and which is kind of pathetic and dramatic and probably still popular in nursery homes.
Now, why is it currently stuck in my head? Because it has all the makings of a fanfic and I'm itching to write it. Only in which way? Yes, there are several.
The most interesting part is that there are two versions of the song which are absolutely identical except for two (!) words which change the entire meaning.
In this song, a medieval army has its camp at the other side of the valley, everybody is happy and singing, and one of the ‘horseboys’ asks the sutler girl where the king is.
The young king, at this side of the valley, watches the scene from afar and is horribly in love with somebody who is not appropriate. The poor guy is almost killing himself over it, really. As a child I thought he was being overdramatic.
In the version I knew as a child, everything hinted at the sutler girl being his love interest. It was decades later that I accidentally read the original version from 1900 and there it's very, very clearly the horseboy.
So our king is gay and can't admit to it, of course, but that's not all. Because while he watches from afar, everybody is laughing, including, especially, this boy he's tearing himself apart over and that just adds insult to injury.
And that's exactly where I went down the rabbit hole. I wanted to know what exactly these horseboys did in an army and found out that they were pretty much child soldiers during the thirty year war, often orphans who had lost their families to marauding soldiers and had no other choice than to join this or that army or mercenary band to survive.
They served in the cavalry by taking care of the horses and essentially, one cavalry soldier got one boy as a personal servant. Among their jobs was, in addition to caring for the soldier's horse and jumping whenever he whistled, collecting spoils off the battlefield and from the corpses. You can be sure all types of cruelty towards the population was included, too. It was really not a nice job.
Once the war ended, those who survived were more or less abandoned and for lack of choices often turned criminal or joined other wars and were often unable to return to civilian life.
Okay, so our king is not only gay but lusting after one of these poor kids. In today's age, we have a whole different reason why that would not be okay but I suppose, in 1900 it was more about being gay.
Anyway, I like to take songs from different angles sometimes, so here's the question: why did the boy laugh at the end? Because he was happy that the king who had these unsettling habits around him was nowhere close and wouldn't molest him any further? Or was he happy that the sutler girl didn't have any success with the king because - let's assume he's old enough for stuff like that - doesn't mind at all? Let's be honest here, if you are considered old enough to fight in one of the most horrible, bloody wars Europe has ever seen, you're old enough to have sex with whomever you want to and be it the young, good-looking king who will never commit to you but at least treats you well for an hour or two.
Or is he totally oblivious and it's just his carefree sunny disposition in the midst of all the blood and mayhem that made the king fall in love with him but the poor, lovesick fool never acted on it at all because despite having inappropriate desires, he's a decent guy and kept them in check?
And why is this army so happy that they are singing and laughing? Did they just win a battle? Or, if this was indeed the 30-year-war (it's nowhere specified) rather burn down a town and spent a few days raping and pillaging? Or is the war over, everybody is happy to go home, except the king because - no more horseboy shenanigans for him?
So. One stupid song whose deeper meaning was totally ruined by prudish people who changed two words and turned it from something interesting to think about and even a bit unusual for its time of origin into something mundane and I'm stuck. Not that I need a new fic to write, so I likely won't. For now.
But Duff would be perfect as an easygoing horseboy. And Izzy would make an awesome innerly torn young king who just won a war and is about to go home and never told this horseboy whom he always found reasons to exchange a few words with that he is deeply, desperately in love with him.
Duff, of course, is also a bit worried because all he knows since a far too young age is the army and what is he now supposed to do? His family is dead, his village destroyed. Just when he's old enough to move on to cavalry soldier and make a bit of money by pillaging and plundering himself, the war is over.
So as the king was always nice to him, he hoped that perhaps he could get a job at his stables - he's really good with horses by now - but all of a sudden the bastard is all aloof and pretends he doesn't exist. And then there's this sutler girl whom the king seems to like now and then - he's mainly trying to dispel rumours and, really, if he closes his eyes he can pretend that she's a sutler boy - and Duff would never admit it to anybody but he's a teeny tiny bit jealous.
Because the king gets this wistful look sometimes when they talk and for being a king, he's nowhere near as high and mighty as Duff expected a king to be. In another life, he sometimes thinks, they could almost have been friends.
There's even a book written right after the thirty year war (The Adventurous Simplicissimus Teutsch) which partly deals with exactly this topic (not gay kings but child soldiers being dragged along by the war) and I consider reading it just to find out if I can learn more about the living conditions in these army camps. As the author was one of those boys himself, he should know.
So. Sometimes I get asked where I get ideas for my fics. This is how they happen, by something I hear or see in passing taking roots in my brain.
theartofmadeline
dededos
baratheonpilled
areudirty
titsay
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
