( still from Kwaidan / via )

Some history of Tinariwen.

"Oil Refinery

Under the fume · of the first dragons
those spellbinders who guard · goldhoards under barrows
whole fields of warriors · wilted: even Beowulf
fell in balebreath · from firedrake fangs

Yet this hugest of Worms · though he outburst heaving
from deepest of meres · under farthest moor
is led leaping and leaping ·at last to these shores
and hour by hour · overhewn and whelmed

Not without fury resists · flames in the night
blasts the world air · wans all blue day
Ho! a handful of thanes · in helmets threaten him
in silver keeps stab him · the old swartshiner
with gauges bedevil · with dials with cyclonesnuffers
endless they slaughter · that slimiest of Nadders

Hwaet! he is quick again · thousand-toothed Queller
whirls his ghost in our wheels · unleashes or locks them
Yea he twins twentyfold · twines in our graveloot
breath of that sly snake · stifles and clings
slides from our long ships · coils round our steadings
Eala! we are lost in the spell · of his loopings."

--Earle Birney in Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival

Medals Do No Good.

"...one famous critic informed his public that Beowulf was 'only small beer'. Yet if beer at all, it is a drink dark and bitter: a solemn funeral-ale with the taste of death." --J R R Tolkien, "On Translating Beowulf"

This is how the world works.