Une Taupe Qu’on Se Moquait (A Mole That Was Made Fun of)
Editor’s Note: Poorly translated in the late seventeenth century from Old French, the surviving lines of Une Taupe Qu’on Se Moquait (literally, A Mole That Was Made Fun Of) recount what ethnomusicologists today agree are hallucinations triggered by the ingestion of a variety of wild mushroom once widely cultivated in monastic gardens across Europe during the Late Middle Ages. The mole covering its water and a bone killing the protagonist are little-known leitmotifs of the troubadour song tradition of which little evidence survives. The downpour associated with the court pond at Sceaux is a later addition to the song and in all likelihood a reference to the Château de Sceaux‘s vast formal gardens and reflecting pools designed by the French landscape architect, André Le Nôtre. Some ethnomusicologists have suggested–not without controversy–that the melody of Une Taupe Qu’on Se Moquait inspired the American folk song, On Top of Old Smoky.
Une taupe qu’on se moquait a couvert son eau,
Aie! L’os m’a tu, l’averse d’un cour’tang de Sceaux.
Mr. Funny Bones 