When dealing with Decemberists songs, it's safe to assume that the lyrics are meant to be literal rather than figurative. This isn't ALWAYS the case 100% of the time, but they ARE a folk band after all. So they tell stories. And yeah, a lot of them are based on older stories.
I could be wrong, but this song SEEMS like it's about a man in a town that was come upon by a group of nomads who were in search of water, which was a limited resource in this man's town. It SEEMS like he had to sacrifice his daughter to the nomads (the ones who came down from the mountain), in lieu of giving away the town's limited water. Kind of a "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" kind of situation. Could have something to do with faeries too, not sure about that or what the original source of this story might be if it's not originally by Colin Meloy.
When dealing with Decemberists songs, it's safe to assume that the lyrics are meant to be literal rather than figurative. This isn't ALWAYS the case 100% of the time, but they ARE a folk band after all. So they tell stories. And yeah, a lot of them are based on older stories.
I could be wrong, but this song SEEMS like it's about a man in a town that was come upon by a group of nomads who were in search of water, which was a limited resource in this man's town. It SEEMS like he had to sacrifice his daughter to the nomads (the ones who came down from the mountain), in lieu of giving away the town's limited water. Kind of a "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" kind of situation. Could have something to do with faeries too, not sure about that or what the original source of this story might be if it's not originally by Colin Meloy.