THE ROWAN CANTICLES - Canto XVIII - Confession
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 XVIII
CONFESSION
“Dark's density, ‘tis packed most tight
Before it shatters into light.
The same is apt to truths untold:
Like captives rotting in life's hold,
One fears to tend them with one's sight,
To be reminded of their blight.
Perhaps, one thinks, tight enough trussed,
Their pain will age and turn to dust.
Yet, seldom do truths fade away.
They bide their time and wait the day
When lies, their captors, lose some ground.
‘Tis then, when all seems lost, they're found.”
So thought old Harcto, wrapped in skins,
Cross-legged, firelight on his shins,
As he, upon moist wings of tears
Flew backward through those darkling years,
Confessing secrets to his child,
His welling eyes first blank, then wild.
Love's first impress on innocence
Strikes hard with soft magnificence:
That opposites do so attract
Injects much fancy into fact,
Inveigling lovers to rejoice
Within, as solemn oaths of choice
Between them pass like binding spells.
Thus, on a day when curling swells
Had beachfoam-kissed them at their heels,
Harcto, robeless, beneath the peals
Of seagulls, had his troth besworn
To Silya, maiden of his morn.
That he was fifty, she eighteen,
Incited no one's unt’ward spleen,
At least among the fisherfolks,
Content to make priapic jokes.
No, Silya's people held the Mage
In high esteem. Why, he'd engage
Them nightly in the finest chat
That ever on their ears fell flat.
Though much of it above them flew,
Still, why not listen, sipping brew?
This Mage a world of wonders knew.
Besides, he loved the lass, quite true.
The Man of Magic and the Maid––
Two worlds twined in a single braid.
And so, with ribbons, tooting horns,
And fishmarms dancing on their corns,
The marriage troop had made parade
Down past the wharves where urchins played
At water's edge, and fishnets splayed,
Berimed with salt beneath the sun,
Until the nuptial march was done.
Leg deep in the marsh's shimmers,
Herons stood and speared small swimmers
Near their cottage, as it soon rose,
Its thatch a cap the weavers chose
From in among those swaying reeds.
Here, simple things filled simple needs:
A bed of spruce spars, carved and buffed,
Wool pillows with old netting stuffed,
A table where fresh fish lay cleaned,
A silver plate where Silya preened
As if a lady's mirror, clear,
Brought her young beauty doubly near.
Harcto, apostate to his craft,
Instead worked on a netting raft
That daily rode out on the tide.
Here he snared bleddies for his bride.
Though each day, far across the bay,
The Temple of the Mages lay,
His heart produced not one regret.
"Sweat blood?" thought he. "Nay, I'll sweat sweat
And make love sweetly to my bride."
He thought of his old friends inside,
Of solar plexi ripping loose
And Demons, roaring at the noose.
"Thanks no, oh Gates. Wait me no more.
‘Tis grander here inside the door
Of this small place I now call home
Than in those halls I used to roam.
‘Tis softer, too, the scratch of wool,
Than satin, when the bed is full."
Harcto reflected on his stall,
A cubicle where ev'ry wall
Had gleamed with pearls and pounded gold,
Where one such tile, removed and sold,
Could buy a ship and ten men's lives,
Feed all their children, clothe their wives
And move them into nabobs’ lairs,
Free from all but a rich man’s cares.
He thought as well of his grimoires,
Ritual blades and unguent jars,
His golden leash draped on a tooth
Which from a whale's jaw in his youth
He'd pried when walking on the beach––
All tools of magic, out of reach
Now that he had expelled his seed.
"My wizard clan, they have no need
Of love because they live half dead,
As if of all but mind they're bled.
Look back, once-wizard, at the years:
No love, no sorrow. Hence, no tears,"
He mused each time the Temple's bells
Rang sunset ‘cross the sandy dells.
But quickly would his brooding pass
Whenever he his green-eyed lass
Beheld, leaning out her shutters.
"Here comes now the man who mutters!"
She'd laugh, then pelt him with her smiles.
"He goes not far, but travels miles
Around inside his weighty crown!
Come in, husband, the fish be brown.
Despite the livelihood you've found,
‘Tis one more day and you're not drowned!
So, happy be. Our child, it grows.
Come feel it in its tiny throes."
So passed the months, their cocoon spun,
Wings folded 'bout their little one.
Continue to Canto XIX →
In Warog—the dimensional prison realm of the Norns—Slode the Eldest, King of the Demons, listens to the complaints of Nembagrog the Hater. The defeated Norn, who managed to badly burn Harcto’s soul before being dispatched back to prison, whines for revenge. Slode tells him to bide his time; the Temple Mages are about to shun the apostate from their ranks.