til

Somehow I missed this bit of groovy info, but I submit that my failure to connect on the very clear dedication all these years was due to some Reagan-era disinformation campaign about the identity of the Massenet in question, and it's all William Casey's fault, the lyin' dead bastard.

scattershot funfacts of wiki

"The Lady of the Lake is a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1810. ...Its influence is indirect: Schubert's Ellens Dritter Gesang (later adapted to use the full lyrics of the Latin Ave Maria), Rossini's La Donna del Lago (1819), the Ku Klux Klan custom of cross burning, the last name of the U.S. abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and the song "Hail to the Chief", were all inspired by the poem."