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 XXI
PREGNANT
Near sea and air, when mists arise
In shifting border-compromise,
It’s much like thoughts, those hov'ring things
Which, from the wet of brain, take wings.
Thoughts, too, like our frail bodies are.
Born small, they grow. They mate. They scar.
When deeply wounded, though, they’re slow
To knit themselves again and grow.
Instead, they dive like frightened fish,
Or else, in disjoined gibberish,
They mock themselves in oblique hints,
Avoiding mem'ry's painful prints.
For two bleak fortnights Harcto lay,
His body healed, but thoughts at bay
As he rhymed commentaries on
Things he had never dwelled upon:
"'Tis fine as shine, this sun of mine,"
He'd muse stupidly, line on line.
"I'd catch it, snatch it, from the birds,
But see that spider? Stole my words."
Silya, worried and sick with guilt,
Would serve him soup and fluff the quilt.
"Bad boy is joy. Ho, blather boo!
Add eight less ten plus four makes two!"
So passed his hopeless, childlike days,
His lips encrusted, eyes aglaze.
For her part, Silya faced travail.
"Not long before our newborn's wail
Will bring new life to Harcto's eyes.
It will, I know. Why, one so wise
And brave as he cannot be beat
Forever, by just one defeat,"
She'd say to Bretta and her kin
Who'd brought food for the laying in.
Most other townsfolk kept away,
In terror of the wild display
Of wizard power that they'd seen.
For days, their nets had risen clean
Of fish of any kind or sort
As waves had smashed four ships in port.
Foul odors, borne by rotting clouds,
Had hugged boat decks, eating up shrouds.
Folks had cried, "Beware the Wizards
In their wrath! Next 'twill be blizzards
And frozen seas! The two have lied!
So shun Hartco! And shun his bride!"
"Toadyin' fools. Never you mind,"
Soothed Bretta, hands working to find
The child's position in the womb.
"Won't be long now and down the flume
This baby rides. Head first! You'll see.
Your tits will fill and you'll be free
Of all this belly-stretchin' weight.
Of course, then nights come. Be up late.
All hours, right. Give the child the breast.
Yup, day and night it is, no rest."
"You make it sound like slavery."
"Well, once you's past the bravery
Of all your pain and pushin' hard,
Be years of wipin' brownish lard
From 'twixt their tiny, smoothy cheeks.
‘Fore that, though, mustard. That kind leaks.
Down their legs, right out the swaddlins’!
'Bout time that stops, they’s waddlins’,
Eatin’ dirt and tryin' on words.
'Bout then they cleans up their own turds."
"Oh, Grandma, please, enough of this,"
Laughed Silya, knowing she'd not miss
The diffuse dreams of maidenhood.
Laboriously, up she stood
To tug her shift down past her knees.
"Thank Kladla, Grandma, for the cheese
And oat gruel. Say I understand
Why she no visits makes firsthand."
Wistfully, Silya stole a glance
At Harcto, bent into a stance
Of mute inquiry by the fire.
"He studies it. The flames conspire
To heal him somehow. So he claims.
He mumbles about knowing names
And growing spell-force from within.
Yet, if a Mage he'd never been,
I'd still have loved him, free of that."
"He won't give up his wizard's hat,"
Old Bretta spoke up in return,
"For nuthin'. Mark me. Slow's the burn,
But steady, in him. Just last night,
As I came over, seen a sight,
Or thought I did, right 'bove this roof!
You got my word. I got no proof,
But there, a light above the thatch,
Like worms, was movin’, kind you'd catch
Pond fish with, 'ceptin these was big!
Above 'em, thing looked like a wig,
It did. Just up there. Made no sound.
Just hung, a mast height off the ground.
Now don't that prove he's gittin' well?
How else does one make such a spell?"
Continue to Canto XXII →
By their campfire in the dunes, Gudrunlod continues to listen to her father’s story about Silya and himself, long ago, after Gudrunlod was born. And how they were outcasts, loathed by the fisherfolk, who were now fearful of the Mages’ vengeful power.