THE ROWAN CANTICLES - Canto III - Old Wizard
A Tale Told in the Ancient Manner
The Rowan Canticles is an epic poem written in doggerel tetrameter. In other words, although each line squeezes in eight syllables and rhymes with others 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 III
OLD WIZARD
To kiss the shambling harlequin
Of destiny, ‘tis best to sin
A little. Otherwise, like sheep,
We’re herded into pens to sleep
The death of the incurious,
Convinced of creeds whose spurious
And ancient doctrines keep us there,
Too docile, really, to despair
Of our condition. Thus, the girl,
Known as Gudrunlod, a fine pearl
Of eighteen years, took Devlin back
To her old father. He, a hack
Of sorts, a SkinMage, earned his keep
By chanting ‘til his blood would creep
Out of his back in sundry shapes:
Stigmata in the forms of apes
And dragons, wheels in wheels, strange signs,
All subject to his frank designs
On making money. This blood art
The thaumaturge staged on a cart
With curtains, parked there in the square,
Attracting crowds who’d stop to stare,
Applaud in wonder, then drop coins
Into his hat. As Fate enjoins
The bold to act, with herbals bagged,
Gudrunlod showed him what she’d dragged
Into their lives—a hulking lout
Who stood there, armed, and peered about
The place, with horse and sword. “Old One,”
She whispered, “see what I have done?
I’ve brought us a fine quandary:
A youth, engulfed in heresy,
Who trembles in his mighty frame.
With Rowan-dread his mind’s aflame.
Look on him with your second sight
And tell me of his auric light.
I fancy him, yet fear some wyrd
Clings to him still. Or has it cleared?”
That karcist, once with demons leagued,
Lifted his rheumy eyes, fatigued
And old, and gazed at Devlin’s form.
Like leaves on trees bent in a storm,
A darkling, incandescent swarm
Of fatelights, bent in dendriform
Displays, swirled in his auric sheath.
The old magician ground his teeth,
For there, too, like a black background,
A Rowan-wyrd revolved, profound
And heavy, as if curses hung
And snapped like fly-trap futures, strung
Along the path of Devlin’s life.
“Daughter,” he whispered, “I see strife
And woe attending this one’s tale.
My precious loinfruit, though he’s hale
Today, he dies an unknown way.”
Missing his whispered resumé,
Masked as it was by market din,
Devlin, distracted, peered within
Gudrunlod’s herb bag, which he held.
He thought it strange how strong it smelled.
Clumped Bluets––tiny gold-filled skies––
Lay next to sheaves of Maidens’ Lies
And Mugwort leaves, their streamlet veins
Bound stemward through small counterpanes
Of red-white. He saw Crone’s Heads too––
White bonnets set atop dark blue
Florets. He found it worrisome
That he, at most times quarrelsome
And loud, now stood here timidly
And gazed at flowers. Peevishly,
He raised his eyes to search for brawls
Amid the market’s carts and stalls,
Or else some bully, loud and tall,
Whom he might match in brawn and gall.
No luck. He stood there, beetle-browed,
Until she pulled him from the crowd.
Continue to Canto IV →
Wherein Gudrunlod (pronounced “goo-droon-lawd”) takes Devlin home and serves him Crone’s Head tea, a powerful hallucinogen. Devlin’s mind explodes with visions.
Thanks, Joseph. Especially for the rhymes in response!
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I have looked forard to this all week long
to hear this wyrdy lengthy poem almost like a song.
Done well, my old chap, I say
Tis but a friendly songed lay.