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 VI
THIEVES
Few measure drink by mug or bowl,
Most by loud boasts and lost control,
When thoughts and hands grow liberal
As single toasts turn several.
Devlin, glum, beneath a dormer,
Watched the second toast the former
Of two fat merchants, draped with gold.
The big one, Goodpelf, took his hold
Of the table's edge, then, steady,
To toast, yet again, made ready.
"Grodoo, my friend, to you, again!
Here's profits, mooing in the pen!
More cows we've sold this fattened day
Than all the days in ev'ry May
Of ev'ry year since we've come here!"
At this, he downed his wine like beer.
"Well said! Quite true! Our fortune's made!
Indeed, the Fates have blessed our trade,"
Agreed Grodoo, who laughed and leered,
Then licked the wine spilled down his beard.
"Our foolish farmers are well pleased
With cows they'll soon learn are diseased
Once sores appear on hoof and mouth.
Alas, by then we'll be far south,
A lifetime's gold in our coffers!
Ha! Ha! Here's to clever offers!"
As they reviewed their larceny,
Devlin, back to the masonry
––For no wood wall would he now trust––
Heard all. He roiled with dark disgust
At such conniving and deceit.
"Such hogs are better as dog meat,"
He hissed beneath his beerish breath.
"Useless in life, yet wealth in death,
Are swine, though they seldom know it.
Bad luck finds those who bestow it.”
He who steals from thieves, what is he?
A wrong half-righted, can that be?
Devlin cared not for wrongs or thieves
Or fools who purchased dying beeves:
“The ignorant their own beds make.
Slumbrous illusion, lives can break,
When wishful veils, torn off too late,”
He thought, “reveal the face of Fate.”
Grodoo and Goodpelf lay asleep,
Bellies and goldbags in a heap.
Night's shroud lay wrapped about their flight,
Its darkness stabbed by campfire light.
Their snores, like roars, began to chase
All creatures from that sylvan place.
All beasts but one. It tracked the sound
As, on four legs, it crossed the ground.
First, sword to throat, Grodoo it bound
At ankles, knees and wrists around.
Then big Goodpelf. “Hope luck takes hold,”
It hissed, then rode off with their gold.
What fell to them, he could not say.
His notes read: Travel half a day,
The southbound road. You'll find them tied,
The men who sold you cows that died.
Their gold is mine. Their Fate is yours.
On parchments, tacked to farmers' doors.
Off south, to fool the merchants' eyes,
He rode, then north as the crow flies.
What likens love, if not one's breath?
Once drawn, once felt, both lost bring death.
Life's breath, when stopped, parts soul from frame;
Love's chance, when lost, slays life's best aim.
Like breathing's tide, in ebb and flow,
A loved one's smile will come and go,
Haunting the shores of memory
Like sea things washed in ecstasy.
"Where is she now?" he asked his mind.
"Off to the fields, Minlet to find?
Down that foul lane, some fool in tow,
Who'll drink her tea and mindless go?
The world is color, nothing more!
Here, here! Meet Light, Old Time's sweet whore.
To her, mere thoughts condense life’s sum;
To think the thing makes it become!
So, shall I think my curse is dead?
Will thoughts keep withes from my head?
No, no; thought-magic strong must be,
Strong like the Law or King's Decree,
Well-muscled, like one's arms or back,
A rope, tight sinewed, free of slack.
Think you this way, Gudrunlod maid?
Can you such ropes to magic braid?
Or are your ropes the girlish kind,
Your ropes just hopes which soon unwind?
If brawn or beauty magic made,
Both you or I might wield its blade
And thousands of old Rowans fell
As if mere clover in some dell.
Alas, my brawn no magic grants.
And beauty? Well, I doubt its chance."
So Devlin mused, as he galloped
T’ward a sky by mountains scalloped,
A sky outreaching to the sea,
Which lay twelve versts, northwesterly.
Continue to Canto VII →
Unhappy that Gudrunlod is now infatuated with Devlin, her old father Harcto decides to get her out of town as fast as he can.