To Be A Pilgrim

Who Would True Valor See – Maddy Prior

This song has been playing on loop while I’ve been writing my latest story: a tale of pursuit and faith set in a fantasy world roughly equating to the 17th century. I’m of the opinion that when writing a period piece, the only music thou shouldst be listening to is from that period. Really put thyself in the characters’ cultural headspace. How could you throw your story into the 1980s without putting on at least a little classic rock? Even if it never comes up in the piece, it lends a level of unconscious verisimilitude. Thusly, I have been filling full my ears with olde hymns and folktunes – primarily this and Greensleeves, but finding recordings of the greatest hits of the 1600s is a rather difficult task. 

The text of this hymn was originally non-musical, written by John Bunyan in his seminal work, The Pilgrim’s Progress. This allegorical travelogue was a huge success in its time, and towers above the world of early English literature. Such a wonderful theological story would of course be adapted into song, though a verse about “hobgoblins” and “foul fiends” was struck for many years. Not appropriate for a church context, and so the song was relegated to the gallery, where it sat among other hymns too stout or fervent to suit the more refined, gentle tastes of the Anglican Church proper. 

The 17th century was a most interesting time. On the tail end of the Renaissance, it took that wealth of new ideas and ran them right to the bank, spreading commerce throughout the world. Kingdoms rose and rose some more. Corporations came into being. And for thirty long years, Europe was overtaken with bloody war on a scale never before seen. Cities razed, peoples devastated, millions dead and gone and the squabbling Churches largely to blame. Little surprise, then, in the decades after the war, Europe’s thought turned to reason and order; the Age of Enlightenment, Leviathan… the people were sick of blind and violent faith.

It’s hard to write about religion, especially when fantasy is concerned. Most stories I’ve read that feature a make-believe church paint it as tyrannical, dogmatic, a force to be opposed. That always seemed to me a touch overcorrective. It’s easy, in our more secular age, to lob broad criticism at faith, but by doing so we threaten to erase the positives that faith brings. That is a point I must impress upon readers in this work in progress. The conflict is not faith against disbelief; it is individual faith against the collective. Whether tis nobler to follow a personal trail or a well-trodden highway to belief. And in defense of the church of this imagined world, I gave them wondrous hymns. Say what you will, but holy music strikes the ear most favorably.