Berend

By THLaird Colyne Stewart

A knife so sharp it cuts the sun,

Bright glinting on the helmet done,

The hound baying at his heel,

The forks forged from shining steel,

Acorns grow in a field,

Rodent spread on his shield,

AND in his harness ventures forth to fight;

Soap he renders out of the fat,

Pounding rivets, pummeled, hammered flat,

The quill held in calloused hand,

Letters wrought, the small, the grand,

Mixing ink in white shell,

Pounding on training pell,

AND learning values from his worthy knight.

Reading all books that come to hand,

Behind the thrones of Royals stands,

Carves the meat in feasting hall,

Fearing not the weather’s squall,

Brewing beer, and sweet wine,

Walking through both oak, pine,

AND aids his squire-brothers as he can;

Teaching both in hall and the field,

His worth of measure well revealed,

Cooking over pit of fire,

Being knightly he ‘spires,

All these works by one soul,

Done not for writ or scroll,

THESE are the things that make a mighty man.

OK. This is a priamel. That is to say, it’s a type of German poem that throws around a lot of seemingly unrelated ideas until tying them together at the end. So the lines of this priamel throw out a lot of details about different stuff, but in the end we learnt hat it is all stuff that Berend has done. Berend, having a Dutch persona, would have grown up hearing the work of the mineesingers (hence my choice of German poetics).

While the genre of the poem is the priamel, the form I used is called leich. The leich was a lyric form, similar to the French descort, which was widely used between circa 1200 and 1350. Poems written as a leich were designed to be sung. It could use irregular stanza forms and could be non-repetitive (or it could use a standard stanza form and repeat verses). Regardless of its regularity or irregularity of stanzic form, it was isostrophic (which meant all stanzas conform to the first stanza). They generally had a lot of short rhyming units and could use different types of rhyme.

So I built a stanza form of two 8-syllable lines, followed by two lines of 7-syllables, two lines of 6-syllables, and ending with a line of 10-syllables. This is not a standard stanza form; I wanted to be able to enjoy the freedom of having the option of having an irregular stanza form. The lines were rhyming couplets (AABBCC) while the last line (D) would rhyme with the last lines of the following stanzas. I decided to go with four stanzas, and split them equally in half (so two stanzas per half). I did include a little tiny bit of repetition by having the first three 10-syllable lines start with the same word (which I also decided to render in capital letters). I mainly used end-rhyme, though there is some alliteration in there too.

Illumination

For Baroness Mahault of Swynford

By THLaird Colyne Stewart

From fingers flow a scene,

Of gold leaf, red and green,

Ink and paint they dance,

The quill her quiet lance,

Lines arch crisp and lines arch clean,

To convey gift from her queen.

Mahault, while not having a full persona, did take her name from the Flemish version of Matilda. Therefore, I wanted to write something for her in the Flemish style. Flanders (which is now part of modern Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) shared its literary styles with both the Germans and the Dutch. Therefore I decided to write a minnelied (which literally was a poem or song written by a minnesinger). I found an example of a minnelied that was six lines long with a rhyme scheme of AABBAA. The first two lines had 6-syllables, the following two had 5-syllables, and the last two lines had 7-syllables. This is the manner in which I wrote my poem.

Singing in the Quire

For Athrawes Tarian verch Gadarn

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, February AS 49 (2015)

In master’s hands the boards turn,

By gimlet and plane they churn;

As at her knee pupils learn,

And for new books their hearts yearn.

Yearn to sew the quires straight,

Bind the folia of eight,

Band to board and mate to mate,

Save it from unworthy Fate.

Fate can be athwarted sore

With skin of the goat or boar,

Corner-pieces numbered four,

And catch-plate, bosses and score.

Score the end-band, sing it loud,

Hold end product to the crowd;

Nimble fingers never cowed,

Makes her kingdom ever proud.

I tried to write this poem using the Welsh cywydd metrical form, but I didn’t get it quite right. In cywydd each first line of the couplet should end on a stressed syllable, while the second line ends on an unstressed syllable. All of my lines ended up stressed. It is a very foreign concept to me to end on an unstressed syllable. I also found working with seven syllable lines to be odd (I usually write even numbered lines).

I did however manage to use two Welsh poetic devices (cerdd dagod). The first was using a single end-rhyme in each section of the poem (in this case quatrains). In Welsh this is known as awdl simpliciter (though poems written in awdl simpliciter were usually much longer in length. A *lot* longer.) The second was cyrch-gymeriad, which is using the last word of a stanza as the first word of the following stanza.

Final verdict: it’s ok. I need more practice in trying to adapt Welsh poetics into English. Or learn Welsh. You know, whichever.

For Siegfried Brandbeorn upon being named a vigilant of the Order of the Pelican

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, February AS 49 (2015)

Siegfried, bold knight,

Look now to light;

Behold what waits,

What monarch states:

For service done,

For honour won,

For duty full,

For grace’s pull,

Bow down your head.

Be not in dread,

As rulers speak

Of phoenix beak,

Of hands hurt raw,

Of wolfen paw,

Of feet sore tread,

Of oaths you said,

Of feasts you cooked,

Of halls you booked,

Of land you tilled,

Of roles you filled.

For service done,

For honour won,

Unbend your knee,

We look to thee,

With glory gird,

We wait your word,

Not done by half,

Most worthy Graf.

Written as a Sprechspruch, a German form employed by the minnesingers. It consists of 4-beat lines, arranged in rhymed pairs. It is unstrophic (that is, it is not divided into regular stanzas) but could be divided into sections of various lengths at the poet’s whim. The form is fairly simple, except for the fact that 4-beat lines are hard to write, what with them being so short! 

Lion-Wolf of Ealdormere

By THlaird Colyne Stewart, January AS 49 (2015)

From West he came    to wed the north

Strong-armed and true                        and stalwart bold

He took a crown         in clawed paws strong

Blood-song brightened           and to battle sworn

In Shire he came         sweet song sung his blade

Cloak-danced with foes          clad bright in mail

Breaker of rings          brought forth wound-sea

Fed eagles bold           and foes he tamed

Then jarl of old           earl among earls

Trod the spread cloak             two blood-worms held

Former prince-king      Foe-man hammer

David, raven feeder    dared all to battle

In spear-din met          swift lion and wolf

Slayer of giants           singing of the deed

Took note the skalds   took note the mighty

Slaughter-dew flew    as sun light fell

They battled long        bold fighters both

Found honour there    in foe-man’s fierceness

When din was done    down fell the jarl

The Western lion        had won the day

At Tournoi de Coeur des Glace in 2015, His Royal Highness Steinnar met Syr David Martin Failsworth in the finals of the grand tournament. Syr David was the first Prince of the Principality of Ealdormere, and the first King of the Kingdom of Ealdormere, and is one of our greatest fighters. His Highness gladly met this living legend in honourable combat and was able through his own great skill to carry the day.

This poem, written in an Eddic verse form called Fornyrðislag, is to commemorate this meeting of giants. Fornyrðislag consists of 4-line stanzas, with each line broken into two half lines. The first half line had to have two stressed and two unstressed syllables, while the second half had to have two stressed and either two or three unstressed syllables. It was an alliterative form, with either the first or second stressed syllable in the first half-line alliterating with the first stressed syllable in the second half-line. As was not unusual with Nordic verse I also made liberal use of kennings.

Below I have included a foot-noted version of the poem.

From West[1] he came   to wed the north

Strong-armed and true                        and stalwart bold

He took a crown         in clawed paws strong

Blood-song[2] brightened          and to battle sworn

In Shire[3] he came        sweet song sung his blade

Cloak-danced[4] with foes        clad bright in mail

Breaker of rings[5]         brought forth wound-sea[6]

Fed eagles[7] bold          and foes he tamed

Then jarl of old           earl among earls

Trod the spread cloak             two blood-worms[8] held

Former prince-king      Foe-man hammer

David, raven feeder[9]   dared all to battle

In spear-din[10] met       swift lion[11] and wolf[12]

Slayer of giants[13]         singing of the deed

Took note the skalds[14]            took note the mighty

Slaughter-dew[15] flew  as sun light fell

They battled long        bold fighters both

Found honour there    in foe-man’s fierceness

When din was done    down fell the jarl

The Western lion        had won the day

---

[1] HRH Steinnar originally hailed from An Tir, whose heraldry features a lion.

[2] Battle.

[3] Bastille du Lac.

[4] When the Norse dueled they sometimes put down a cloak, upon which the combatants had to stand.

[5] A chieftain or king, here referring to the fact he is Prince of Ealdormere.

[6] Blood, indicting that he is hitting his opponents.

[7] Defeating enemies.

[8] Swords.

[9] Warrior.

[10] Battle.

[11] Steinnar is a lion, the symbol of his former home An Tir.

[12] David is a wolf, a symbol of Ealdormere.

[13] Thor.

[14] Norse poets and bards.

[15] Blood.

The Kidnapping of Badrielle

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, January AS 49 (2015)

Badrielle was stolen at Septentria’s Twelfth Night;

Adrielle’s eyes were burning with a vengeful fire.

Badrielle was stolen at Septentria’s Twelfth Night,

Stolen from her husband, the ducal northern knight;

Her students knew the matter to be of utmost dire;

Across the land soon many knew of the puppet’s plight

And friends and OAFs and strangers picked up weapons for a fight;

The duke set out to searching, sending forth his squire,

Who searched the hall and field and keep, the basement and the spire;

And guilty parties felt compelled to put to pen and write,

For they had taken her to drinking around a hearty pyre,

They prayed her Grace’s anger would therefore be slight,

Adrielle’s eyes were burning with a vengeful fire.

A fatras simple, halfway between being a fatras possible and a fatras impossible. Based on an event that occurred at Septentrian 12^th Night 2015. A well meaning prankster “kidnapped” Adrielle’s puppet alter-ego Badrielle, but failed to return her before the event ended. To say this made Adrielle’s hair stand on end would be an understatement. Badrielle is so well loved in Ealdormere (and in lands beyond) that many people were beginning to be upset. Thankfully, the “kidnapper” contacted Adrielle, and all was again well with the world. 

For Ysemay Sterlyng, on Becoming a Vigilant of the Order of the Laurel

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, January AS 49 (2015)

From Eastern lands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

For Ysemay Sterlyng’s deft and graceful hands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

For Eastern royals

Will glad increase the standing of Their Laurels

With Ysemay Sterlyng, both kind and loyal

Will glad increase the standing of Their Laurels

With Eastern grace

She stands a Peer, forever in her place

Bright Ysemay Sterlyng of the smiling face

She stands a Peer, forever in her place

Notes on the Piece

You’ll have to bear with me on this one. Ysemay is being made a Laurel for her knowledge of 16^th century Germany (an era I know nothing about). So, I looked into what kind of poetic traditions were common in that time and found the Meistersingers, guilds of professional poets and singers who lived by dozens if not hundreds of rules (Die Kunstausdrücke der Meistersinger, a rule book written in 1887, is almost 300 pages long).

I could only find basic information about the Meistersingers in English, so my attempt at writing lyrics in their style may be WAY off. Further research will have to discover how close or far I got.

Meistersingers apparently wrote their verse in three strophes (or stanzas). I could not find out what kind of strophe they used (as there are many kinds), so I based mine on a piece of musical notation I found for Veilchenweise by Hans Folz. The lyrics were not included so I could not see the rhyming scheme, but it did allow me to see exactly how the strophe was constructed from its parts. I decided to go with an AAAA BBBB CCCC rhyming scheme.

Each strophe was divided into two stollen (confusingly also referred to as stanzas, and collectively known as an aufgesang). They were followed by an abesang (the after-song). It was apparently not uncommon for the stollen to be of different lengths. Melodically, the abesang would mirror the end melody of the aufgesang. I have included this mirroring by repeating the second stollen as the last line of the abesang.

So, deconstructed, here is the first strophe of my poem:

Aufesang

[Stollen 1] From Eastern lands

[Stollen 2] Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

Abesang

For Ysemay Sterlyng’s deft and graceful hands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

Technically, this should be written to music, but I know next to nothing about writing music.