THE ROWAN CANTICLES - Canto XIV - The Dunes
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 XIV
THE DUNES
“Through children, men and women live.
Babes stopple Time's relentless sieve
That drains the old, lost in sorrow
Past the meshes of tomorrow
Even as children catch and hold,
At least until they too grow old.”
So mused old Harcto on the dunes,
Gnawing at jerky, mush and prunes.
"Is this the grass?" queried the lass.
"Is this what makes his danger pass?"
She'd left the fire to roam the sands
And stood now, scratches stinging hands.
"But gathered not so quick and blithe!
Alive they must be, rooted, lithe
Before the winds of chance event!
Elsewise, like me, their magic's spent."
He sat back with a sour chuckle,
Tapping fore-eye with a knuckle.
"Oh, toiling Mage upon the heath!
Your power's but a withered wreath!
Ha! Ha! Papa, oh, pity deep!
Oh, wet petard against the keep!"
Gudrunlod laughed and looked away.
"What tower’s that? Down by the bay?
See there? Of stone, built on the rocks?
So tall it is, the sky it mocks."
Through mem'ries of ten thousand days,
He forced his saddened, leaden gaze
Onto the Temple by the sea.
His answer trembled, like a plea:
"'Tis darkness, limned by spectral light.
An arid place where sea froths white."
Perplexed, Gudrunlod hugged her knees.
He seldom tried with words to tease
And costume truth in riddling rags.
She looked into his eyes, their sags,
Corpselike and gaunt beneath his gaze,
Daring forbidden thoughts to raise:
"My mother, then. Something is here."
“Ask not those questions, daughter dear."
"All other girls their mothers know!"
"For you, ‘tis not meant to be so!"
Spat Harcto, doubling into coughs,
As far below, the crests and troughs,
Unwitting, swept past ocean graves
Long overgrown by roots of waves.
Just touched, raw wounds smart crueler woes
Than sturdy flesh, struck hard by blows.
Gudrunlod's wound, deep as her life,
Still ached to know her father's wife.
But Harcto's lips, sealed shut in pain,
Spoke nothing of with whom he'd lain
To sire the daughter, bright and sweet,
Who’d played about his lonely feet.
Of late, her need more vital seemed:
A woman came now as she dreamed
And rocked her gently, clothed in gray,
But shook her head when begged to stay.
A gray kerchief would hide her face.
She'd vanish to a distant place,
A place of winds and storm-surge roars,
Silenced by halls and slamming doors.
"You owe me this before you die!"
Gudrunlod growled, then left to cry.
Like balls of glass, aglaze, throbbing,
His eyes took in the ships, bobbing
Out on the harbor's choppy skin
And saw the man he once had been,
Aswim in flecks of net-thrown light,
Cast dappled on his knees, drawn tight
Beneath a hummock of old wool.
That moment, Silya stooped to pull
The bedding snug, fever to warm
Against the chill pushed by the storm
Into the hut through crack and sill.
For days Harcto had lain there, ill.
A soothing, hov’ring, gentle light,
She’d tended to him, day and night,
Unspeaking 'til some question asked,
Her thoughts behind her green eyes masked.
Continue to Canto XV →
Having returned to the dunes above Peloon, Hartco recalls how, as a celibate Water Mage long ago, he fell in love with Silya, daughter of the fisherfolk.