By THLaird Colyne Stewart, July AS 50 (2015)
Who is this man of whom I must sing praise?
His name is Roland, fearless, lord of frays.
His tale begins in past and bygone days
And when he wend his way from Triton’s maze
Out of the sea he came all scaled in maille
With piercing eyes and arms so mighty hale
A warrior in blue and golden cote
He climbed aboard a rocking northbound boat
Who is this man of whom I must sing praise?
His name is Roland, fearless, lord of frays.
To seek the calling song of his heart’s lays
He bravely traveled many, many days
He left Atlantia to come far north
In wolfen lands he boldly journeyed forth
And met his love in ancient royal town
And with her went to war to win renown
Who is this man of whom I must sing praise?
His name is Roland, fearless, lord of frays.
In the light of midnight’s tempestuous blaze
He found himself the aim of noble praise
An ursine Duchess of the cliffs and glen
Him asked to stand amongst her loyal men
And fight as her high thorn at the bell’s knell
A task accomplished oh so very well.
Who is this man of whom I must sing praise?
His name is Roland, fearless, lord of frays.
At War of the Trillium
2015, House Arrochar was joined by two guests: Ersabet (from Toronto
This poem is written
as a danseta, which is a dansa without a vuelta (a vuelta being the repetition
of lines from the first stanza in the subsequent stanzas). Also spelt dança,
the dansa was an Old Occitan form of lyric poetry developed by the troubadours
in the 13th century. As the name would suggest, it was often
accompanied by dancing. The balada is a related form with a more complex
structure.
A dansa begins with a
respos of one or two lines with a rhyme scheme that matches that of the first
line or two of each following stanza. The respos itself may be repeated between
stanzas as a refrain. There were usually three stanzas. The verses of a dansa
were sung by a soloist with a choir singing the refrain.
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