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 XVII
PERIAPT
“Not for their strength are lilies grown,
Nor for their weight are zephyrs known,
Or for their boldness, butterflies,
Or for their coldness, children's eyes.
Such things pass quickly, lost to time,
Yet in their frailty are sublime
Beyond all denser, solid things.
True beauty to the fleeting clings.
Uncertain why, we cling to life,
Our beauty burnished by its strife,
Yet tarnish we, when near its end,
Our prejudices we defend,”
Thought Harcto as he bent and coughed.
On gusts, deft seabirds keened aloft
And rode swift tidal bores of wind.
The seagrass, now bent flat and pinned
Down to the sand by rattling air,
Reminded him of Silya's hair,
How, when she'd worked, she'd drawn it tight
And freed it forth only at night.
He plucked a long, thin razor-leaf
And added to the bundled sheaf
Of beach grass growing at his knees.
"A periapt 'gainst Rowan trees.
How might such an invention look?
It must appear great care I took.
Gudrunlod will be curious.
She might sense something spurious
Unless ‘tis woven thick and tight.
Perhaps we'll make it glow at night."
Beside his oxcart on the dunes,
Mumbling away, he wove in runes,
While far below, the sea's edge growled.
"’Tis Devlin’s fault that all is fouled.
Gudrunlod fancied duty's work.
From household toil she'd never shirk.
From love's confusion she was free!
No finer daughter lives than she.
No longer, though. She loves the oaf.
She's cooked them both inside her loaf
Of girlish dreams, still fresh and hot.
And here, I, like an ass, do plot
To maintain distance 'tween the two.
Perhaps ‘tis not the thing to do.
This place brings back an aching love
This dried old body still dreams of.
I 'spose hers aches no less than mine.
Perhaps the boy I do malign.
Quite true: most men would dead now be
Who'd dared to fell a Rowan tree.
The wyrd about him was pronounced
As if Nature’d loudly announced
His death as payment for his deed.
His sword hand had begun to bleed
Life's light, if I recall it clear.
His aura was a mottled smear."
Sunset's last arc, dusk dulled and dim,
Lay smoldering at ocean's rim.
Harcto discerned a moving speck
Making the winding, sandy trek
T’ward these dunes at Peloon’s purlieus.
“Ah well,” he thought, “’tis time to choose.
Life ends much like a windy day.
The wind falls off. The light won't stay
Upon the sea or in the mind.
Instead, in dark, the world grows blind.
Its monuments all fade from view,
Until, by children, carved anew.
Alas, my child, you've picked your stone.
‘Tis time, I guess, to carve your own.”
Dark against the sunset water,
A silhouette––Harcto's daughter––
Approached him, back-lit, on the sand,
A basket's outline in her hand.
"Wizardfish, father. Three for three.
Drowned dead, Papa, in air's bright sea."
"Ah, good. Look here, the weave is apt,
Eh? Think you not? Our periapt
Will do its work for your young beau."
"Old One," she questioned, oddly low,
"Are drownings common in this town?"
The old man set his grasses down,
Regarding her with narrowed eyes.
"No, daughter, no. I would surmise
That Temple magic saves most lives
That otherwise cold death contrives
To take by storm or accident."
"No, father. That’s not what I meant.
Have you yourself seen drowning here?"
Gudrunlod asked, her words with fear
And anger tumbling forth like stones.
"And have you bought fish from old crones
Who know you by another's face?
No? No? You stay here in your place
So no one in the town below
Might see you skulking to and fro
And say 'There goes that secret life
Who raised the face of his dead wife!'"
"Silence, child!" her father bellowed.
"No!" she stamped. "Your lie has yellowed,
Died old, and dripped its stinking stain
Upon me and this hopeless pain
Too long! No! I will take no more!
Who drowned my mother far from shore?
Seems in the town she has some fame.
Silya! Silya! Is that her name?"
To silence stunned, across the fire,
Harcto observed the flames leap higher.
The heaving wind gusts fanned their hue
To that of Mage robes, burning blue.
And then the old man broke and wept,
His love, his guilt, his secret kept,
All gnawing at his bitten heart.
And pride, too––ah, there was that part––
Fierce pride and fear, ingrown as one,
That hid the deed he once had done
And all the powers that he'd lost.
Seeing him weep, Gudrunlod crossed
And knelt beside him. She wept, too,
Uncaring what else she might do.
The truth at last, a lifetime old,
Had no choice but to now unfold.
And so she waited, stroked his hair,
And felt his frailty’s deep despair.
Continue to Canto XVIII →
For the first time, Harcto tells Gudrunlod about her mother, Silya, and how he married her with the fisherfolk’s approval two decades before. An apostate Water Mage and a soon-to-be father, he moves with his young bride into a hut by the marsh. Across the bay looms the Temple of the Mages, no longer his home.