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 XIX
WAROG
If evil hates all life and love
Except its own, and hand in glove
With deadly, murd’rous appetites
Feels nothing as it stabs and bites
Its victims, best to chain its glee
And never let it wander free.
In Warog’s prison, cragged and foul,
Slumped Slode the Eldest. Like an owl
Whose head turns disjunct from its base,
His slitted eyes glared from his face––
Two zircons, blue beyond all cold.
From them, the blood of infants rolled
Like tears, shed for the sake of show.
Indeed, Prince Slode could make them flow
In mockery of his true state,
As he did now, when the furred pate
Of Nembagrog the Hater rose
––As does a back-boil when it blows––
Above the lake of excrement
Fed by the Prince's hinder vent.
"Speak, sweet castoff," rumbled Prince Slode.
"Corpulent mat. Pitiful toad.
Explain your dreams' vicissitudes."
As a starved bowel soon occludes,
The Hater shrank his reddish weal,
Then issued forth a wailing squeal––
Pathetic, yet demanding stuff.
Slode saw it was but anguished bluff.
"Is that so, wormbag? We don't buy.
That Harcto flung you from the sky!
Stupid! You looked! You're locked once more
Behind our silken, iron door!
You think the Mages will agree
To have you as their company?
Ha! They dismiss you, quickly willed,
Even this one you might have killed,
But for your pride, oh, matted worm!
You gaped, you fool! Had you held firm
And kept the leash taut, moments more,
His ribcage would have hit the floor!
Your soul-burning was incomplete!
Why suck you now about my feet?"
At this, the psycophant below
Writhed painfully and murmured low.
"You've touched my hearts," taunted the Prince.
"You frumpish clot! You shan't convince
Us that another try is nigh.”
He loudly hissed a fetid sigh.
“Look forth! The wheel turns 'pon the days;
So spare us these contrite displays!
Some small time more, you'll have your fun.
When Harcto’s Brothers vow to shun
Him from their hostile, jealous ranks,
Come forth again, and give us thanks.”
Continue to Canto XX →
The Temple Mages twine their Leashes of Will into a weapon—The Excommunication Braid—and attack Harcto outside his cottage in the marshes.