THE ROWAN CANTICLES - Canto VII - Deception
A Tale Told in the Ancient Manner
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 VII
DECEPTION
Love, at its best, wipes commonsense
Away. Much as drops will condense
From hidden liquid in the air,
So, too, do lovers soon compare
Their temp’ratures til, happily,
Their judgement fogs up suddenly.
"The talk is all about the town,
Father," she said as he sat down.
"They found them on the southbound road,
Trussed tight and lightened of their load.
If it weren't for the missing gold,
Those two would now be dead and cold.
But, they the robber's face have seen!
Quite tall, they say, both strong and lean,
With long dark locks and downturned mouth.
They say he laughed and rode off south!
In the square, the farmers clamor,
Each one with his scythe and hammer.
I wonder, could it Devlin be,
His mind atilt from Crone’s Head tea?"
Old Harcto hoped the thief they'd catch
And hang him high with swift dispatch.
If Devlin, well, much the better.
Rowan branch or iron fetter,
It mattered not which held him fast,
So long as he soon breathed his last.
"My precious loin fruit, hearken here,"
He said, his daughter's thoughts to steer.
"Perhaps a periapt needs he;
A charm of arcane symmetry:
Half––Rowan magic to deflect;
Half––him from farmers to protect.
Ah, yes. But daughter, oh, alas!
Without six clumps of new sea grass,
Plucked as they tremble on the dunes,
No waxen trees or skin-scribed runes
Will pluck him from Fate's slamming jaw!
That rare sea grass but once I saw.
You wish to save him? Yes, quite so.
Then north it is that we must go,
To hunt among those humps of sand
And pluck the grass where sea meets land."
Cleverly, without insistence,
Harcto plotted to put distance
Between his daughter and the lad
Who’d turned her head by being bad.
Continue to Canto VIII →
Wherein the two thieves find themselves in the town stocks and devise a way to escape by trapping shadows.
"Much as drops will condense, From hidden liquid in the air," - I do love a good ancient-epic simile!