The Rowan Canticles is an epic poem written in doggerel tetrameter. In other words, although each line contains eight syllables and rhymes with other lines nearby, like Shakespeare, I’ve used enjambment (one line spilling over into the next) here and there, especially in dialog sections. Mostly, though, I’ve striven for iambic tetrameter, which makes for a nice rhythm. You’ll notice that couplets, quatrains and other rhyme schemes refresh with each long Canticle. The old school language of The Rowan Canticles can be dense, but hey, it’s fun and it fits the fantasy.
Each week I will post a fresh Canto here at Substack, adding to the story. You’ll find ninety-nine Cantos in all contained in the three Canticles. The work is 13,000 lines long, about the length of Homer’s The Odyssey.
I hope you enjoy it!
Odds Bodkin
Don’t forget to download the companion Glossary below for definitions of archaic words to smooth your read!
CANTO I
CURSED
A thoughtless act can change the world.
Its seed, by Time’s thick mists enswirled,
Will slowly grow beyond mind’s reach
To gather weight and girth, as each
Ensuing day compounds the woe
It spawned, until life’s quid pro quo
Comes due. Just so, one fateful morn,
When Devlin, he to kingship born,
The High Prince of the Rowan Hills,
Boot-splashed his way through sparkling rills
And drew his blade. “I dare you!” laughed
Calmon of Clu, mead-sotted, daft,
And wild-eyed, too. Before them stood
A Rowan tree, its gracile wood
And arc of limbs alone within
A ring of trees. “Oh, dear. A sin,”
Devlin’s drinking companion grinned;
“What, look! The braggart looks chagrinned
And chastened! Lost your nerve then, eh?
I should’ve known you’d cast away
Your only chance to break a rule
In your whole life!” “Be silent, fool,”
Growled Devlin. “Aye, I’ll do it. Watch.”
He flipped away the sweat-stained swatch
Of long dark hair hung down his cheek
And felled the little tree. A smeek
Of sizzling sap burned in his nose
As Devlin danced back on his toes.
Then, he and Calmon, slapping backs,
Rode off along the well-worn tracks
That wound down from the sacred copse
Of hilltop Rowans. Both made stops
To empty bladders in the brush,
Then elbowed through the mead-house crush,
Up to the bar, to drink yet more,
And chuckle at their land’s quaint lore:
Thou shalt not harm a Rowan Tree.
“Aye, p’raps for them. Not you and me,
Though,” Devlin quipped and quaffed his mead.
But then, the Rowan's vengeful rede
Began. The old, dead wood shot sprigs,
Quick serpents’ tongues of twisting twigs,
From out the brim of Calmon’s bowl
And gripped his head. The Rowan-soul
Within the ancient bowl yawned wide,
Then bit his face to seal inside
His nose and mouth. He reared and fell,
Struggling to foist the choking swell
Of pintish waves at his breath’s shore.
And though he flailed and kicked, three more
Tough leaf-blade withes strapped his head,
Then bore into it. Shot with dread,
Devlin leapt down and tried to tear
The horrid things from Calmon’s hair.
Instead, those leaves, like razors, fell
Upon his frantic hands, pell-mell.
He kicked away in magic-dread,
Afraid to help. Calmon lay dead,
A bloody shrub grown on his head,
His face, dark wood. And there in red
And smoking script across the bowl,
Devlin spied words, as on a scroll:
"But your blood, hewer of my wood,
My wind-tossed flesh, by seasons ringed,
Will gush when life does sweetest thrive,
Like flowers berries soon to be.
Then will the lifeblood in your veins
Flood my old roots, and nourish me."
To Devlin’s knowledge, Rowans rose
To make crops grow. Now terror froze
Him in his place, the guilty kind,
For now he’d learned the truth behind
His people’s ancient homily:
Thou shalt not harm a Rowan Tree.
In his young life, he’d never thought
To probe the adage much. Now caught
In his own folly, Devlin stared
At what he’d wrought, at what he’d dared
To do. The young prince rose and fled.
To ride on home, his best friend dead,
A sacred grove tree felled as well,
Was more than he could face. To dwell
Near Rowans, now that he’d been cursed
By one, seemed madness. Wyrd-coerced,
Death-panicked, fearing ev’ry tree
He saw, he galloped guiltily
For his land’s borders, past the arch
He’d always loved and past the march
Between his Uncle’s Rowanwolds
And forests dotted with freeholds
Where Rowans did not choke the slopes
Along the road and he had hopes
Of maybe gaining some plateau
Where Rowan-magic could not go.
Past farms he rode, their streams ablaze
In sunlight; through the smoky haze
Of villages he’d never seen;
Past goat-strewn hills where tree stumps, green
With withes, sucked the elder light
From earth’s dark realms. In mindless flight,
On through the night beneath the moon,
He galloped, a dark shabaroon
Who no one knew, and on ‘til dawn
Until, exhausted and withdrawn,
He slept against his horse’s back
Next to the narrow, lonely track
He’d followed last. It passed through fields
Well clear of any Rowan-wealds.
By noon-time, sun red-lit his lids
And wakened him. Two katydids
Were mating on a nodding stem
Above his face. Disturbing them
Seemed not the thing to do just then,
So he lay still and thought again
Of what he’d done. “Gods’ Bones, I’m dead,”
He sighed aloud, shaking his head.
“Will Uncle Bruss forgive me this?
I don’t see how.” No cowardice
Had Devlin ever shown, with men
At least. But this tree specimen
Used magic for its weaponry,
Not swords or pikes. “It’s time to flee
A little further then, I guess,”
He moaned and gently pulled a tress
Of grass to one side. Clinging tight,
The bugs seemed bent on their delight
As he stepped lightly by. The road
Led onward, ‘til the distance showed
A wide lake, burning in the sun
With coruscations. Five days’ run
Brought him to hills splashed pink and blue
By springtime’s recent rendezvous
With autumn’s seeds. Far off, a town,
Its upper outskirts dripping down
The hillsides, puddled at the lake’s
Northwestern shore. Passing some brakes
And wildflowers, Devlin approached
A cattle fence whose rails encroached
On meadows at the town’s purlieus.
Knee-deep in blooms, she bent to choose
Her flowers there, a maiden did.
Braids roped her chestnut hair amid
Bright ribbons wound in here and there.
If she sensed him, she didn’t care
To show it, as he stopped to stare
At her intriguing derrière.
Continue to Canto II →
Wherein Devlin meets Gudrunlod (goo-droon-lawd). She knows more than a peasant girl should about what a Rowan’s curse means.