THE ROWAN CANTICLES - Canto X - Former Life
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 X
FORMER LIFE
“Cold comradeship do stars provide.
They light the closer, inner side
Of night's vast weight, which, chill and clear,
Pulls ‘pon us like some puppeteer.
Its unseen threads to heads and hearts
Attached, it acts us through our parts
From birth's first cry to bent old age,
Upon our distant, tiny stage.”
So thought old Harcto as he lay
Atop a blanket stuffed with hay
And listened to Gudrunlod sleep,
This daughter he so longed to keep.
Against those stars, her profile shone.
She warmed the cold of being alone.
"So like your mother," whispered he,
As girlish laughter by the sea
Rang in his head from ear to ear,
Love's echoes from a star-torn year.
That year had brought relentless gales.
They'd toppled masts and beached great whales,
Pried off slate roofs, eroded walls
And whistled down his Temple's halls.
The Gates of Warog swung and clanged
As Mages, leashed to Norns, harangued
The swirling centers of those storms
To force them into gentler forms
Or drive them down like whales sounding.
One bleak night, as waves were pounding
Tidal surges up the tunnels,
Bubbling shards of masts and gunwales
Into the Temple's Ocean Pool,
Harcto sat on his granite stool.
He’d been in the etheric orb,
Where folding darknesses absorb
All but the strongest probes of thought
And Warog’s Demon-Norns were caught.
Among those vast, inflowing stars
His trained eyes could detect the bars
Of Warog's Gates there, high and wide,
Stretched lightyears past the pale divide
Of spirit and the dross of things.
Beyond those Gates, Norns soared on wings
Above the morbid pits of Nil,
Or wallowed in its sewage spill,
Spat vomitus like molten lead,
And died, unable to stay dead.
His sweat drops oozed from ev’ry pore.
Although outside he heard winds roar,
Here was the fiercer battle fought:
Each Mage, by then, a Norn had caught,
Each straining high above the surge.
Harcto, leashed to a demiurge
Called Nembagrog, exhaustion faced.
Great deeds oft meet demise when haste
To end them strikes down proper rules.
The wisest Mages turn to fools
When, without rest, they face the Gates.
The gale spawned there never abates.
To summon demons is enough
To pluck one's being free of its stuff.
Magic's practice spells disaster
Should one's Norn defeat its master,
And, hating its imprisonment
In Warog's howling firmament,
Flee off its Leash to manifest
In killer's heart and serpent's nest.
No sleep had Harcto known for days,
Not while those gales threatened to raze
The town. Now, blood dripped at his pores
And ran along the Temple's floors.
Cruel Nembagrog refused to heed.
It loved to watch magicians bleed,
Especially this nemesis,
Who dragged it often from its bliss
Yet now dared chant, blear-eyed and weak.
Foul Nembagrog swelled up to speak,
A spewing welt of hair and teeth
Above worms hung like legs beneath:
"Your sweat flows red, magic maker.
You are taken! I, the taker!
How feels it with the tables turned?
Down to its root your soul I've burned.
Still, you persist in this charade,
Not knowing you for fool I've played.
You can't return me to my place.
Your bloody floor is your disgrace!"
With that, the howling Demon rose
As, gasping in exhaustion's throes,
Harcto felt his solar plexus
Tear and loosen as the nexus
Of his Will Leash almost gave way.
Below, the Sea Pool boiled with spray,
Whirlpooling like some giant drain.
His blood sprayed forth like frothing rain.
Deep distanced from his outward plight,
The Mage's thoughts, though, slipped from sight,
Retreating down through layers of soul,
Surveying the battle's heavy toll.
Indeed, much of him was now dead.
Yet, through those ruins, far ahead,
One door, though charred, had stopped the blaze
Of Nembagrog's fast-burning gaze.
"It knows not of this," Harcto thought.
"My chance lies here, if I'm not caught.
Distract him, then slip through the door.
Must draw him downward toward the floor.
He traps me, while the tether's taut.
One moment's slack, much time I've bought."
So up he flew, back to his eyes,
Still wond'ring how he might surprise
With word or gesture that foul beast.
His chant throughout had never ceased.
In discipline learned long ago,
His swollen lips still mumbled low.
Mages do not like willows bend.
On steadfast strength do they depend.
With burnished Wills, fierce as their pride,
They'd rather break than bend aside.
No quarter do they give or ask.
Their Demons, partners in the masque
Of magic, crave one thing to see:
Their rulers begging for mercy.
And so it was, that Nembagrog
Stopped flailing then, and watched, agog,
As Harcto's voice no longer droned
The chant which all night he'd intoned.
Instead, the Mage for mercy cried,
Shuddering there and empty-eyed.
In wonder, close the Demon drew.
Of words like these there'd been too few.
Just then, Harcto slipped out of sight
And turned to face his sanctum light
Where all things thunder into one,
Where what will be is long since done,
Where ylem's word, in echoes, rings
And meaning cleaves unto all things.
Inside he'd slipped, then closed the door.
The Norn would trouble him no more,
For now he saw that inmost thing
And felt in him the urge to sing
Oh, portal at the root of life!
So light it made him, free of strife.
The wizard gathered what remained,
Sped to his eyes, alert, bloodstained,
And dashed the Norn against the vault.
This to its boasting put a halt.
Then, loud from Harcto's lips––the Word.
As last, in strength regained, it stirred.
Screaming, the Demon disappeared
Into a growling net of wyrd,
Returned to prison past the Gates
To lick its pride and nurse its hates.
Dawn rose, bringing the fateful day
When Harcto learned his feet were clay.
Continue to Canto XI →
After nearly dying at his leash and lying unconscious on the strand, Harcto is found by a fishergirl.