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Four and Twenty Leroni is "a rowdy song" which the soldiers sing on Bard and Beltran's campaign against the clingfire carvans in Two to Conquer. The first two lines are quoted:[1]

Four-and-twenty leroni went to Ardcarran,
When they came back again, they couldn't use their laran--

Beltran recalls to Bard "when our tutors beat us for copying the dirtier verses of that one in Carlina's copybook."[2]

Marion Zimmer Bradley gives an acknowledgement "To "Cinhil MacAran" of the SCA for the first verse of "Four and Twenty Leroni"--to the tune of "The Ball of Kiirriemuir".[3]

The song is derived from an Scotish vulgar song which ran:

'Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness, when they all went back again they were four and twenty less'

References[]

  1. Bradley, Marion Zimmer. Two To Conquer: A Darkover Novel. New York, N.Y.: Daw Books, 1980. p. 81.
  2. Ibid, p. 82.
  3. Ibid, t.p. verso.