THE ROWAN CANTICLES - Canto XXVI - Rowan's Wrath
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 XXVI
ROWAN’S WRATH
So, if the spirit lives alone
Within its cage of flesh and bone
And no one ever truly hears
Another's song, though sung for years,
Then how is it that friends appear,
And wives and husbands, all held dear
And close against the brutish world,
Along with babies, once unfurled
And grown? Devlin admired such things,
But more his quiver, bow and slings,
Horse withers tensed in jostling speed,
Knife-honing stones, warm thickened tweed,
And where the grouse or bucks might freeze
When sensing bear stink on the breeze.
This lore he shared with Gald, his friend,
A master fisher from land's end.
Learning, in turn, it’s much the same
To hunt for fish as fish for game,
They shared a week of company
In growing camaraderie.
Gald showed him riggings, winds and tides,
While Devlin flayed some bloody hides,
Taught Gald to gut, to bait thong snares
And lie in wait near wolfcat lairs.
Gald spiked old knots, retied them true,
Then taught Devlin each one to do,
And as they shared their skill and lore,
Their friendship deepened all the more.
Powdered to purple flakes, admixt
With pocket fluff, forgot betwixt
His woolens, Devlin’s Crone’s Head Cap
––Picked after he had sprung his trap
Upon the merchants’ unearned wealth
And hidden most with woodsman's stealth––
Had long since passed its tinctured prime,
Dried as it was and ground to grime.
As through the forests Gald he led,
He always looked for more Crone's Head.
A Rowan, rare, alone, he spied.
"Gods! That's the tree whose brother died
And caused me all this deadly fuss.
He’d like my head and neck to truss."
"Never seen one, in any wood."
"That tree would kill me if it could."
Big Gald feared no death save to drown,
So t'ward it strode, his face a frown,
When from its bark ushered a sound––
A groan––then sap oozed to the ground.
"A mandrake! Fie, it cries and bleeds!
What magic throbs within these weeds?"
"If I knew that, then home I’d go,
And through the gold of morning's glow
Walk safe in groves where these things grow.
My ignorance enslaves me, though.
I’m cursed, friend Gald, my fate in tow
Behind the things I do not know."
"Then learn you what you must, my friend,
And to this curse fast put an end!"
"One needs, I fear, an inner eye
That sees through substance. Though I try,
I see nothing, but what is here:
This tree, those rocks, ourselves, that mere.
Countless reasonable objects.
Spoors and owlballs, clouds of insects,
Water seeping, paw prints crumbling,
Webs a'glistening, bees a'bumbling,
Clustered fireblooms at water's edge,
Some purplish ones at that far ledge . . .
Wait! Wait! Are those Crone's Heads? Come, Gald!
My teapot maid would be appalled
If she knew I'd found these in force!
Much rarer they than thyme or gorse.
Perhaps they crave this moist and shade.
Well, well, with this, my hunt is made!"
With that, Devlin knelt low and chose
Three Crone’s Head blooms, then, smiling, rose.
"Those Mages, Gald, down by the sea.
Might they assist me for a fee?"
"Be warned, Devlin, ‘tis kings they serve,
Not huntsmen. Fie! I've not the nerve
Even up to their gates to walk.
The Water Mages mince no talk
With giftless rogues who stride the streets.
‘Tis plenty that they guard our fleets."
"If celibate, what grows their host?
Surely the old ones die like most."
"Aye, they are men; wither and die
They do, like all life 'neath the sky.
And yet, not men; they speak the tongues
Of deathless wraiths, storms in their lungs.
No, no; don’t think to probe their keep.
The rock stairs to those doors are steep,
Forbid to all save kings . . . and fools."
"And neither one need follow rules,"
Rejoined Devlin, the Crone's Head soft
Between his fingers, held aloft.
A velvet lamp, violet-lit,
He marveled at the strength of it.
As sunlight swept its downy spines,
They plowed the air like crystal tines.
“If I, then, pursue magic's path,
Might that defeat my Rowan's wrath?”
He wondered. Mages just might show
Him spells to use! Then, home he’d go.
Continue to Canto XXVII →
In the lowland swamps below the Rowan Hills live the jealous Swalefolk Clans. Their chief, Broodie Catland, has heard that his old enemy Devlin has vanished after felling a sacred Rowan tree. With only old King Bruss left in charge, Broodie plots a siege against the Hillfolk.