Cremation of Sam McGee Examined

Speaker 1 0:00

Well, good afternoon podcast plus member, or perhaps I should say good morning, or even good evening, whatever time it is with you right now. I'm pleased that you've decided to join me. So we're going to deep dive into the cremation of Sam McGee, a poem that I quite enjoyed, even though it has a very morbid theme. So I did go through some of the basic little points, but now we're going to dive much deeper. Let's begin.

Speaker 1 0:33

There are strange things done in the Midnight Sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tails that would make your blood run cold. A tail spelled T-A-L-E-S is a story. So the Arctic trails have their secret stories that would make your blood run cold. That would terrify you, to make your blood run cold. Terrifying Then. All the lights have seen queer sites, but the queerest they ever did see was that night on the marge of Lake La Barge. I cremated Sam McGee. So here the word queer is used in the more old-fashioned sense of the word. So queer used to mean odd, different, unusual, and so the northern lights have seen queer sites, odd and unusual sites, but the queerest they ever did see, the strangest, the oddest they ever did see, was on the marge of Lake La Barge when I cremated Sam McGee. It goes on Now.

Speaker 1 1:46

Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows, so we're thinking about the cotton plant here in the fields, we talk about flowers blooming, the cotton blooms and it blows in the wind. Why he left his home in the south to roam around the pole, god only knows. So here we're actually asking or saying that, why he did this. We don't know why he left his home to roam. To roam is to wonder, almost freely or without direction, or to cover a vast amount of land. So we often talk about certain animals roaming far across the land. Cats tend to roam quite far from their home and that rhymes. So he roams around the pole. We're talking either about the North Pole or the South Pole here. The North Pole, I believe. God only knows. I think I mentioned this in the main episode. This is a way of saying I don't know why, I don't know, god knows, god only knows. I don't know. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell. Now, if something holds you in this context, it means it's got you in a trance. You can't help but be intrigued by it. It holds you. Some people are held in a situation or in a relationship that seems crazy to the onlooker. It seems crazy to family and friends. They're like why do you keep yourself in that situation or in that relationship? It's not good for you, it doesn't seem happy or healthy, but some people are held in these situations so they are entranced, they are intrigued. They cannot break that spell, though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd sooner live in hell. The poem goes on On Christmas day we were mushing our way over the Dawson Trail.

Speaker 1 4:00

Now remember, to mush is a form of transport. It's when you are on a sleigh being pulled by dogs. Talk of your cold. Through the parkers fold it's stabbed like a driven nail. Now here a parker.

Speaker 1 4:18

A parker is a type of coat. Whenever I talk about a parker it always makes me think of South Park. That's adult animation, where there was the character Kenny who always died in every single episode and you never saw his face because he was always wearing a parker with a big hood up over his head. And these parkers are what you wear in very cold climates. Very nice, warm coats, but even through the parker, through the folds of the parker. The cold stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes would close, then the lashes froze till. Sometimes we couldn't see, so our eyes would freeze shut. It wasn't much fun. But the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. Now to whimper is kind of like a moaning cry. That's to whimper, it goes on, the letter is missing, and so we pronounce it oah, oah-head, oah-head, and this is something you find a lot in Shakespeare or older, more classical writing Oah-head. We don't usually say that these days, we just say overhead, overhead, like the overhead power lines. So, and the stars, oah-head, were dancing heel and toe.

Speaker 1 6:10

He turned to me and cap says he, I'll cash in this trip, I guess. And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request. So here he says cap, I'm guessing. Then he's referring to the person who's writing the poem as captain. So he's referring to his friend as captain, cap, and he says I'll cash in this trip, I guess. So he's saying I think that I'm going to die on this trip, and if I do die, then I'm asking that you do something for me and you can't refuse Now to cash in. This comes from gambling. When you cash in is when you decide to finish your gambling session and you take your gambling chips to the cashier and you hand them in and say here we go, can I exchange these please, or can I cash in please? And then they exchange your gambling chips for cash. So you end your session. In this case he's being metaphorical and using the term cash in to refer to dying. I'm going to die now, I'm going to cash in my chips this trip.

Speaker 1 7:26

We often also say I say often we don't talk about dying that often, but we tend to say kick the bucket or to shuffle off this mortal coil. That comes from Shakespeare. Right, so moving on. Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no, now to be low. If someone is described as being low In this context, it means blue, depressed, sad, low on energy. So low can also mean when something is kind of not very moral, not very fair or just so I could describe something as being low, your behaviour as being low, if I think you're behaving badly, immorally, unfairly, or if you said something that was really, really mean and cutting, and I could say oh, that was low.

Speaker 1 8:29

It goes on to say. Then he says with a sort of moan it's the cursed cold and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone, yet to taint being dead. It's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains. So here he said cursed. Now I pronounce it that way because it has an accent over the E, but we wouldn't normally pronounce E-D that way. Again, this is more of an old fashioned thing. We normally say cursed, cursed, but because of that accent, cursed, cursed.

Speaker 1 9:11

And he says taint, taint. This is a combination of it ain't or it is not. It should be, it is not, but he's saying it ain't it taint, taint. So he says it's the cold. It's really got to me. I'm cold to the bone. This is a common phrase. To be cold to the bone, it means you're really cold, you're deeply cold. He says I'm not scared of dying. I dread being in an icy grave. I don't want to die and be left in the cold. I really dread.

Speaker 1 9:50

So he goes on to say so I want you to swear that foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains. So here he says foul or fair. Now foul basically means bad. We use foul a lot. You could have foul language that refers to swearing.

Speaker 1 10:14

We talk about dogs fouling. If you walk around the UK, especially around areas in residential areas where there's little patches of green grass, then they'll normally be assigned saying no dog fouling here or something like that, and it means dog poo, dog nastiness, so dog foul. And you can foul in a sport, can't you? Where you do something that's not allowed, that either hurts or hinders the other player, so that's a foul. You get in a lot of trouble for fouling during a game. So here he's saying I want you to promise, I want you to swear, that foul or fair, so bad or good, foul or fair, you will cremate my body. My last remains. It goes on.

Speaker 1 11:08

A pal's last need is a thing to heed. Here the word heed means to pay attention to. So a pal, a friend, a friend's last need, their last request, is something that you should pay attention to. So I swore I would not fail and we started on at the streak of dawn. But God, he looked ghastly pale. So here they use the phrase at the streak of dawn, which is quite unusual, because the common phrase would be at the crack of dawn, the crack of dawn, but here he's used streak of dawn. It just means at the moment that the sun first begins to appear.

Speaker 1 11:53

He crouched on the sleigh and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee. Now to rave? To rave is to talk a lot and it often suggests that the talking or the shouting is kind of crazy. So we often use rave as an adjective to say that someone is raving mad, he's raving, he's crazy, he's raving mad. And so here we're saying he raved all day, because rave can also mean to talk in an excited way. She raved about the new sports centre, it's so good. She raved about it all day. So to talk excitedly about something, so not quite sure whether he is talking in a slightly crazy and disorientated way or if he's talking in an excited, nostalgic way about his home. And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. So a corpse, corpse is a dead body. There wasn't a breath in that land of death and I hurried, horror driven, with a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid because of a promise given. So he can't get rid of this corpse because he's made a promise.

Speaker 1 13:23

To get rid of something is to dispose of it, like you get rid of junk, you get rid of rubbish, you put it in the bin and let someone else deal with it. It was lashed to the sleigh and it seemed to say you may tax your brawn and brains, but you promised, true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains. So to be lashed to the sleigh means to be tied to the sleigh, and it says you may tax your brawn and brain. Your brawn is your strength and your brain is your intellect. So to tax it is to use it. But you promised, and it's up to you. It means you have a responsibility to do something. It's up to you to cremate those last remains. Now, a promise made is a debt unpaid Notice that I don't pronounce the B in debt, debt.

Speaker 1 14:24

And the trail has its own stern code. So if something has its own code, that's talking about a code of conduct, like a set of rules that everyone must adhere to. So if you're at a school or in a place of work, there'll be some form of code of conduct, there'll be a code, and people often talk about an unspoken code that is, between friends. So, for example, there might be a brother's code where it's unspoken, but it's a rule that if your brother has dated a girl and he really liked her and he was in love with her, but that relationship broke down, then you can't go and date that girl, absolutely not. That's breaking the brother's code, and there are all sorts of unspoken codes. So here we're talking about the stern code, the strict code of conduct of the trail.

Speaker 1 15:24

So I'm guessing that this refers to the fact that when you are in these very seriously dangerous environments like upper mountain, or in icy, cold environments, far away from civilization and help, the code of conduct in those situations is not to try and help those who have fallen, because you will die as well. You'll both die, so you're supposed to just leave them, and especially a dead body. You're supposed to just leave it so that you don't kill yourself trying to recover it. But he's saying a promise made is a debt unpaid. I have to pay this debt, and the trail has its own stern code. And maybe actually that's referring to the fact that the code is that you have to keep your promises.

Speaker 1 16:12

I don't know In the days to come, though, my lips were dumb in my heart how I cursed the load so dumb, dumb. If his lips were dumb, that means he can't speak, and notice how I didn't pronounce the B in dumb either. Dumb In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies round in a ring howled out their woes to the homeless snows. Oh God, how I loathed the thing. To loath something is to hate it. And every day that quiet clay seemed too heavy and heavier grow. And on I went, though the dogs were spent. To be spent in this context is to be exhausted. You've spent all your energy. You have nothing left, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low. The grub Grub is a slang term for food. We often talk about getting pub grub. Pub grub is pub food, food served in a pub.

Speaker 1 17:23

The trail was bad and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in. So I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to surrender to this challenge. I will complete it. I won't give in. And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it harkened with a grin. To harken, this is an archaic term, so don't worry too much about it, but it means to listen.

Speaker 1 17:51

Till I came to the marge of Lake Labarge and a derelict there lay like a boat, an abandoned boat. It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the Alice May and I looked at it and I thought a bit and I looked at my frozen chum. Chum is a slang term for friend or pal. Then here said I with a sudden cry is my crematorium? A crematorium is a place where you cremate bodies, so a fire that's designed for burning bodies and remains Some planks. I tore from the cabin floor and I lit the boiler fire. Some coal I found that was lying around and I heaped the fuel higher. So coal coal is the material that we used to use the little black balls that we would use on a fire, but we don't really use coal anymore. The flame just soared and the furnace roared such ablaze you seldom see Seldom means not very often or very rarely seldom and I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Speaker 1 19:15

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to see him sizzle. So Now here he says I made a hike, which is not a very typical way to talk about going for a walk or going for a hike. We would say I went for a walk or I went hiking or I went for a hike. But I wouldn't say I made a hike. You could say I made off, I made off, I left, I got going really quickly. Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle. So To sizzle is that sound of frying, and the heavens scowled. To scowl is to kind of like wrinkle up your eyebrows and your forehead and to look really unhappy. The heavens scowled and the huskies howled. Oh, and the wind began to blow. It was icy, cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheek, I don't know why, and the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. So the inky cloak is just talking about the darkness of, like the cloak of night time. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear, but the stars came out and they danced about ere ever.

Speaker 1 20:42

I ventured near, I was sick with dread, but I bravely said I'll just take a peep inside. So to take a peep is to look very carefully, to take a tiny look like you just opened the door, a teeny, tiny little bit, just enough to allow your eyes to take in the view beyond the door. So just take a peep inside. I guess he's cooked and it's time. I looked Then the door I opened wide and there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace drawer and he wore a smile and he said please close the door. It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm. Since I left Plum Tree down in Tennessee it's the first time I've been warm.

Speaker 1 21:40

And then it goes on to repeat the first paragraph. Now I have to say I don't know why I did that really odd accent for the voice of Sam McGee. So please don't take that as any indication of a Tennessee accent. It's absolutely nothing close to a South American accent. In fact I was trying to do kind of like a Cornish English accent. So please just ignore it because I was doing a terrible job. But I do hope that you enjoyed this brief deep dive into the poem the Cremation of Sam McGee. Until next time, thank you, as always, for your support and I will see you in the next episode.