Fiddler's
Green is an after-life where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that
never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. In 19th-century maritime
folklore, it was a kind of after-life for sailors who had served at least fifty
years at sea. A Valhalla for sailors if you will!
At Fiddler’s Green, where seamen true
When here they’ve done their duty
The bowl of grog shall still renew
And pledge to love and beauty.
Herman
Melville describes a Fiddler's Green as a sailors' term for the place on
land "providentially set apart for dance-houses, doxies, and
tapsters" in his novella Billy Budd, Sailor, in 1924.
The
author Richard McKenna wrote a story, first published in 1967,
entitled "Fiddler's Green", in which he considers the power of the
mind to create a reality of its own choosing, especially when a number of
people consent to it. The main characters in this story are also sailors, and
have known of the legend of Fiddler's Green for many years.
Some
places associated with the Navy and Marine Corp have been named Fiddler's Green:
The U.S.
Navy enlisted club Sasebo, Japan from 1952 to 1976
The
enlisted men's club at Bainbridge Naval Training Center
The base
pub at the Joint Forces Training Base, Los Alamitos, CA
An
artillery only pub for the 10th Marine Regiment, Camp Lejeune, NC
A small
E-club on the U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton in area 43 (Las
Pulgas)
… and …
The U.S.
Marine Corps operates Firebase Fiddler's Green in the heart of the
Helmand River Valley, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
