Filk Friday: The Captive and The River's Gift

For a song/book combo, I give you The Captive, sung by Heather Alexander on the Freedom, Flight, and Fantasy CD, and The River's Gift, both of which were written by Mercedes Lackey.

 

From Lackey's website:

In The Rivers Gift, a young woman uses her healing gifts to help a magical horse-like creature--and receives, in return, the greatest gift of all... 

Fifteen-year-old Ariella, lady-to-be of medieval Swan Manor, possesses magical healing abilities that she practices on the animals in the forest adjacent to her father's lands. One day a magnificent black horse emerges from the nearby river in need of her ministry. The horse is Merod, and he is a more-than-mortal Kelpie, a magical being who converses telepathically with Ariella. Distrustful at first, he warms to Ariella gradually, which is vital to her when, after her father's sudden death, she is taken away by a brutish cousin to be his bride.

I heard the song first then discovered the book at the library during my college years. Heather Alexander's voice beautifully captures the tones of the various parts. Though the book is the prose version of the song, I think it's interesting that the story within the song itself is loose enough from the book, that other prose versions could be written around it, much like her song Lammas Night did have multiple stories themed around it. (to be featured closer to Halloween) If you like fantasy music, I highly recommend picking up the CD, found at Firebird Arts.