Fiddler's Green

English

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Fiddler's Green

Wikipedia

From 19th-century English maritime folklore.^[1]

(nautical, folklore) A legendary afterlife for retired sailors, where there is perpetual mirth, fiddle music, and dancing.
- 2007 March 6, Julie Rutterford, Life on Mars, Season 2, Episode 3:
  Sam Tyler: Where to now?
  Gene Hunt: Fiddler's Green.
  Sam Tyler: I hope that's the name of a pub.
(nautical, slang, dated) A place of frolic on shore.
(US, military) A stopping place for fallen cavalrymen on the path to the afterlife.
- 1996, Edward L. Daily, We Remember: U.S. Cavalry Association, Turner Publishing Company, page 7,
  Fiddler's Green is where a cavalryman meets his comrades who have gone before him, at an old canteen, surrounded by a broad meadow, dotted with trees and crossed by many streams. Here the cavalryman stops, unsaddles his horse, and joins his comrades for a visit with many stories, reminiscences, and camaraderie, before continuing his journey. Soldiers of no other service may stop at Fiddler's Green, they must continue to march.

In US usage, the term has been associated with the military, in particular the cavalry.
- The Cavalrymen's Poem (1923) (alternatively titled Fiddler's Green) depicts it as a stopping place (for cavalrymen only) on the road to the afterlife.
- See Fiddler's Green § In the United States military on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

^ 1965, Paul M. Crosby, Legend of Fiddlers' Green, Armor, Volume 74, No. 6: Nov–Dec, 1965, page 9 — There seems to be no doubt that Fiddler's Green is an imaginary place, free of care, and that it is the figment of very old legends. One of the oldest references to be found (1825) describes it as the place where animals go when they die. Tailors and musicians early occupied a place of honor, if the date of the references is the only consideration. Other fairly old sources mention sailors (of all ranks). Certainly, most references allude to the priority given to seafarers.