Timothy Ferguson's Blog, page 14

The Dong with a Luminous Nose by Edward Lear

We had some Lear last Christmas, so let’s make it a tradition. A new will-o-the-wisp.

***

When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights; —
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore; —
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore: —

Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,
There moves what seems a fiery spark,
A lonely spark with silvery rays
Piercing the coal-black night, —
A Meteor strange and bright: —
Hither and thither the vision strays,
A single lurid light.

Slowly it wander, — pauses, — creeps, —
Anon it sparkles, — flashes and leaps;
And ever as onward it gleaming goes
A light on the Bong-tree stems it throws.
And those who watch at that midnight hour
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as the wild light passes along, —
“The Dong! — the Dong!
“The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
“The Dong! the Dong!
“The Dong with a luminous Nose!”

Long years ago
The Dong was happy and gay,
Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl
Who came to those shores one day.
For the Jumblies came in a sieve, they did, —
Landing at eve near the Zemmery Fidd
Where the Oblong Oysters grow,
And the rocks are smooth and gray.
And all the woods and the valleys rang
With the Chorus they daily and nightly sang, —
“Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and the hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.

Happily, happily passed those days!
While the cheerful Jumblies staid;
They danced in circlets all night long,
To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong,
In moonlight, shine, or shade.
For day and night he was always there
By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,
With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair.
Till the morning came of that hateful day
When the Jumblies sailed in their sieve away,
And the Dong was left on the cruel shore
Gazing — gazing for evermore, —
Ever keeping his weary eyes on
That pea-green sail on the far horizon, —
Singing the Jumbly Chorus still
As he sate all day on the grassy hill, —
“Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and the hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.

But when the sun was low in the West,
The Dong arose and said;
— “What little sense I once possessed
Has quite gone out of my head!” —
And since that day he wanders still
By lake and forest, marsh and hills,
Singing — “O somewhere, in valley or plain
“Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
“For ever I’ll seek by lake and shore
“Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!”

Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,
And because by night he could not see,
He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
On the flowery plain that grows.
And he wove him a wondrous Nose, —
A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
Of vast proportions and painted red,
And tied with cords to the back of his head.
— In a hollow rounded space it ended
With a luminous Lamp within suspended,
All fenced about
With a bandage stout
To prevent the wind from blowing it out; —
And with holes all round to send the light,
In gleaming rays on the dismal night.

And now each night, and all night long,
Over those plains still roams the Dong;
And above the wail of the Chimp and Snipe
You may hear the squeak of his plaintive pipe
While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain
To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;
Lonely and wild — all night he goes, —
The Dong with a luminous Nose!
And all who watch at the midnight hour,
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
Moving along through the dreary night, —
“This is the hour when forth he goes,
“The Dong with a luminous Nose!
“Yonder — over the plain he goes;
“He goes!
“He goes;
“The Dong with a luminous Nose!”

Cellini and the explosive birth of The Perseus

In this episode Cellini gives birth to his masterpiece, the bronze Perseus. It almost kills him and I’d argue that – if it’s because he is a Verditus magus – this process draws on his life energy so that he is in risk of death to get this final piece of work done.

I would note, because this is Cellini, at the very end his enemies suggest that no human being could possibly have created something as wonderful as what he’s created and therefore he must be a demon. I’d link this into the Paganini story. He was such a good player of the violin that he must have been trained by a demon and to one of our far earlier episodes, The self-made man is a monster.

The following was recorded into the public domain by Sue Anderson through LibriVox. Thanks very much Sue. Thanks to Sue’s production team.

This is our second last Cellini. The last one, which will be next month, has me going through the work plucking out weird bits of medical alchemy. You’d be amazed how Cellini removes iron splinters from his eyes.

***

Accordingly I strengthened my heart, and with all the forces of my body and my purse, employing what little money still remained to me, I set to work. First I provided myself with several loads of pinewood from the forests of Serristori, in the neighbourhood of Montelupo. While these were on their way, I clothed my Perseus with the clay which I had prepared many months beforehand, in order that it might be duly seasoned. After making its clay tunic (for that is the term used in this art) and properly arming it and fencing it with iron girders, I began to draw the wax out by means of a slow fire. This melted and issued through numerous air-vents I had made; for the more there are of these, the better will the mould fill. When I had finished drawing off the wax, I constructed a funnel-shaped furnace all round the model of my Perseus. [1] It was built of bricks, so interlaced, the one above the other, that numerous apertures were left for the fire to exhale at. Then I began to lay on wood by degrees, and kept it burning two whole days and nights. At length, when all the wax was gone, and the mould was well baked, I set to work at digging the pit in which to sink it. This I performed with scrupulous regard to all the rules of art. When I had finished that part of my work, I raised the mould by windlasses and stout ropes to a perpendicular position, and suspending it with the greatest care one cubit above the level of the furnace, so that it hung exactly above the middle of the pit, I next lowered it gently down into the very bottom of the furnace, and had it firmly placed with every possible precaution for its safety. When this delicate operation was accomplished, I began to bank it up with the earth I had excavated; and, ever as the earth grew higher, I introduced its proper air-vents, which were little tubes of earthenware, such as folk use for drains and such-like purposes. [2] At length, I felt sure that it was admirably fixed, and that the filling-in of the pit and the placing of the air-vents had been properly performed. I also could see that my work people understood my method, which differed very considerably from that of all the other masters in the trade. Feeling confident, then, that I could rely upon them, I next turned to my furnace, which I had filled with numerous pigs of copper and other bronze stuff. The pieces were piled according to the laws of art, that is to say, so resting one upon the other that the flames could play freely through them, in order that the metal might heat and liquefy the sooner. At last I called out heartily to set the furnace going. The logs of pine were heaped in, and, what with the unctuous resin of the wood and the good draught I had given, my furnace worked so well that I was obliged to rush from side to side to keep it going. The labour was more than I could stand; yet I forced myself to strain every nerve and muscle. To increase my anxieties, the workshop took fire, and we were afraid lest the roof should fall upon our heads; while, from the garden, such a storm of wind and rain kept blowing in, that it perceptibly cooled the furnace.

Battling thus with all these untoward circumstances for several hours, and exerting myself beyond even the measure of my powerful constitution, I could at last bear up no longer, and a sudden fever, [3] of the utmost possible intensity, attacked me. I felt absolutely obliged to go and fling myself upon my bed. Sorely against my will having to drag myself away from the spot, I turned to my assistants, about ten or more in all, what with master-founders, hand-workers, country-fellows, and my own special journeymen, among whom was Bernardino Mannellini of Mugello, my apprentice through several years. To him in particular I spoke: “Look, my dear Bernardino, that you observe the rules which I have taught you; do your best with all despatch, for the metal will soon be fused. You cannot go wrong; these honest men will get the channels ready; you will easily be able to drive back the two plugs with this pair of iron crooks; and I am sure that my mould will fill miraculously. I feel more ill than I ever did in all my life, and verily believe that it will kill me before a few hours are over. [4] Thus, with despair at heart, I left them, and betook myself to bed.

Note 1. This furnace, called ‘manica,’ was like a grain-hopper, so that the mould could stand upright in it as in a cup. The word ‘manica’ is the same as our ‘manuch,’ an antique form of sleeve.

Note 2. These air-vents, or ‘sfiatatoi,’ were introduced into the outer mould, which Cellini calls the ‘tonaca,’ or clay tunic laid upon the original model of baked clay and wax. They served the double purpose of drawing off the wax, whereby a space was left for the molten bronze to enter, and also of facilitating the penetration of this molten metal by allowing a free escape of air and gas from the outer mould.

Note 3. ‘Una febbre efimera.’ Lit., ‘a fever of one day’s duration.’

Note 4. Some technical terms require explanation in this sentence. The ‘canali’ or channels were sluices for carrying the molten metal from the furnace into the mould. The ‘mandriani,’ which I have translated by ‘iron crooks,’ were poles fitted at the end with curved irons, by which the openings of the furnace, ‘plugs,’ or in Italian ‘spine,’ could be partially or wholly driven back, so as to the molten metal flow through the channels into the mould. When the metal reached the mould, it entered in a red-hot stream between the ‘tonaca,’ or outside mould, and the ‘anima,’ or inner block, filling up exactly the space which had previously been occupied by the wax extracted by a method of slow burning alluded to above. I believe that the process is known as ‘casting á cire perdue.’ The ‘forma,’ or mould, consisted of two pieces; one hollow (‘la tonaca’), which gave shape to the bronze; one solid and rounded (‘la anima’), which stood at a short interval within the former, and regulated the influx of the metal. See above, p. 354, note.

LXXVI

NO sooner had I got to bed, than I ordered my serving-maids to carry food and wine for all the men into the workshop; at the same time I cried: “I shall not be alive tomorrow.” They tried to encourage me, arguing that my illness would pass over, since it came from excessive fatigue. In this way I spent two hours battling with the fever, which steadily increased, and calling out continually: “I feel that I am dying.” My housekeeper, who was named Mona Fiore da Castel del Rio, a very notable manager and no less warm-hearted, kept chiding me for my discouragement; but, on the other hand, she paid me every kind attention which was possible. However, the sight of my physical pain and moral dejection so affected her, that, in spite of that brave heart of hers, she could not refrain from shedding tears; and yet, so far as she was able, she took good care I should not see them. While I was thus terribly afflicted, I beheld the figure of a man enter my chamber, twisted in his body into the form of a capital S. He raised a lamentable, doleful voice, like one who announces their last hour to men condemned to die upon the scaffold, and spoke these words: “O Benvenuto! your statue is spoiled, and there is no hope whatever of saving it.” No sooner had I heard the shriek of that wretch than I gave a howl which might have been heard from the sphere of flame. Jumping from my bed, I seized my clothes and began to dress. The maids, and my lads, and every one who came around to help me, got kicks or blows of the fist, while I kept crying out in lamentation: “Ah! traitors! enviers! This is an act of treason, done by malice prepense! But I swear by God that I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die will leave such witness to the world of what I can do as shall make a score of mortals marvel.”

When I had got my clothes on, I strode with soul bent on mischief toward the workshop; there I beheld the men, whom I had left erewhile in such high spirits, standing stupefied and downcast. I began at once and spoke: “Up with you! Attend to me! Since you have not been able or willing to obey the directions I gave you, obey me now that I am with you to conduct my work in person. Let no one contradict me, for in cases like this we need the aid of hand and hearing, not of advice.” When I had uttered these words, a certain Maestro Alessandro Lastricati broke silence and said: “Look you, Benvenuto, you are going to attempt an enterprise which the laws of art do not sanction, and which cannot succeed.” I turned upon him with such fury and so full of mischief, that he and all the rest of them exclaimed with one voice: “On then! Give orders! We will obey your least commands, so long as life is left in us.” I believe they spoke thus feelingly because they thought I must fall shortly dead upon the ground. I went immediately to inspect the furnace, and found that the metal was all curdled; an accident which we express by “being caked.” [1] I told two of the hands to cross the road, and fetch from the house of the butcher Capretta a load of young oak-wood, which had lain dry for above a year; this wood had been previously offered me by Madame Ginevra, wife of the said Capretta. So soon as the first armfuls arrived, I began to fill the grate beneath the furnace. [2] Now oak-wood of that kind heats more powerfully than any other sort of tree; and for this reason, where a slow fire is wanted, as in the case of gun-foundry, alder or pine is preferred. Accordingly, when the logs took fire, oh! how the cake began to stir beneath that awful heat, to glow and sparkle in a blaze! At the same time I kept stirring up the channels, and sent men upon the roof to stop the conflagration, which had gathered force from the increased combustion in the furnace; also I caused boards, carpets, and other hangings to be set up against the garden, in order to protect us from the violence of the rain.

Note 1. ‘Essersi fatto un migliaccio.’

Note 2. The Italian is ‘bracciaiuola,’ a pit below the grating, which receives the ashes from the furnace.

LXXVII

WHEN I had thus provided against these several disasters, I roared out first to one man and then to another: “Bring this thing here! Take that thing there!” At this crisis, when the whole gang saw the cake was on the point of melting, they did my bidding, each fellow working with the strength of three. I then ordered half a pig of pewter to be brought, which weighed about sixty pounds, and flung it into the middle of the cake inside the furnace. By this means, and by piling on wood and stirring now with pokers and now with iron rods, the curdled mass rapidly began to liquefy. Then, knowing I had brought the dead to life again, against the firm opinion of those ignoramuses, I felt such vigour fill my veins, that all those pains of fever, all those fears of death, were quite forgotten.

All of a sudden an explosion took place, attended by a tremendous flash of flame, as though a thunderbolt had formed and been discharged amongst us. Unwonted and appalling terror astonished every one, and me more even than the rest. When the din was over and the dazzling light extinguished, we began to look each other in the face. Then I discovered that the cap of the furnace had blown up, and the bronze was bubbling over from its source beneath. So I had the mouths of my mould immediately opened, and at the same time drove in the two plugs which kept back the molten metal. But I noticed that it did not flow as rapidly as usual, the reason being probably that the fierce heat of the fire we kindled had consumed its base alloy. Accordingly I sent for all my pewter platters, porringers, and dishes, to the number of some two hundred pieces, and had a portion of them cast, one by one, into the channels, the rest into the furnace. This expedient succeeded, and every one could now perceive that my bronze was in most perfect liquefaction, and my mould was filling; whereupon they all with heartiness and happy cheer assisted and obeyed my bidding, while I, now here, now there, gave orders, helped with my own hands, and cried aloud: “O God! Thou that by Thy immeasurable power didst rise from the dead, and in Thy glory didst ascend to heaven!”…. even thus in a moment my mould was filled; and seeing my work finished, I fell upon my knees, and with all my heart gave thanks to God.

After all was over, I turned to a plate of salad on a bench there, and ate with hearty appetite, and drank together with the whole crew. Afterwards I retired to bed, healthy and happy, for it was now two hours before morning, and slept as sweetly as though I had never felt a touch of illness. My good housekeeper, without my giving any orders, had prepared a fat capon for my repast. So that, when I rose, about the hour for breaking fast, she presented herself with a smiling countenance, and said: “Oh! is that the man who felt that he was dying? Upon my word, I think the blows and kicks you dealt us last night, when you were so enraged, and had that demon in your body as it seemed, must have frightened away your mortal fever! The fever feared that it might catch it too, as we did!” All my poor household, relieved in like measure from anxiety and overwhelming labour, went at once to buy earthen vessels in order to replace the pewter I had cast away. Then we dined together joyfully; nay, I cannot remember a day in my whole life when I dined with greater gladness or a better appetite.

After our meal I received visits from the several men who had assisted me. They exchanged congratulations, and thanked God for our success, saying they had learned and seen things done which other masters judged impossible. I too grew somewhat glorious; and deeming I had shown myself a man of talent, indulged a boastful humour. So I thrust my hand into my purse, and paid them all to their full satisfaction.

That evil fellow, my mortal foe, Messer Pier Francesco Ricci, majordomo of the Duke, took great pains to find out how the affair had gone. In answer to his questions, the two men whom I suspected of having caked my metal for me, said I was no man, but of a certainty some powerful devil, since I had accomplished what no craft of the art could do; indeed they did not believe a mere ordinary fiend could work such miracles as I in other ways had shown. They exaggerated the whole affair so much, possibly in order to excuse their own part in it, that the majordomo wrote an account to the Duke, who was then in Pisa, far more marvellous and full of thrilling incidents than what they had narrated.

The Hours from Thomson’s “Insomnia”

This poem, which the author claimed as autobiographical, contains angels or demons of the hours, which are progressively more terrible as the night continues. They sap the man’s ability to sleep, such that he becomes like a ghost. Death in life is one of Thomson’s core artistic preoccupations.

One note on the contents: “Malebolges” mentioned near the end are a reference to Virigil’s Inferno. Maleboge is his Eight Circle of Hell. It is a vast funnel-shaped cavern, in which there are ten ditches. Into this various sinners are deposited, and in the centre lies the Ninth and final Circle.

The reader for this poem is MoonLilyth from Librivox. Thanks to them and their production team. Stats eventually.

***

I HEARD the sounding of the midnight hour ;
The others one by one had left the room,
In calm assurance that the gracious power
Of Sleep’s fine alchemy would bless the gloom,
Transmuting all its leaden weight to gold,
To treasures of rich virtues manifold,
New strength, new health, new life ;
Just weary enough to nestle softly, sweetly,
Into divine unconsciousness, completely
Delivered from the world of toil and care and strife.

Just weary enough to feel assured of rest,
Of Sleep’s divine oblivion and repose,
Renewing heart and brain for richer zest,
Of waking life when golden morning glows,
As young and pure and glad as if the first
That ever on the void of darkness burst
With ravishing warmth and light ;
On dewy grass and flowers and blithe birds singing,
And shining waters, all enraptured springing,
Fragrance and shine and song, out of the womb of night.

But I with infinite weariness outworn,
Haggard with endless nights unblessed by sleep,
Ravaged by thoughts unutterably forlorn,
Plunged in despairs unfathomably deep,
Went cold and pale and trembling with affright
Into the desert vastitude of Night,
Arid and wild and black ;
Foreboding no oasis of sweet slumber,
Counting beforehand all the countless number
Of sands that are its minutes on my desolate track.

And so I went, the last, to my drear bed,
Aghast as one who should go down to lie
Among the blissfully unconscious dead,
Assured that as the endless years flowed by
Over the dreadful silence and deep gloom
And dense oppression of the stifling tomb,
He only of them all, Nerveless and impotent to madness, never
Could hope oblivion’s perfect trance for ever :
An agony of life eternal in death’s pall.

But that would be for ever, without cure !
And yet the agony be not more great ;
Supreme fatigue and pain, while they endure,
Into Eternity their time translate ;
Be it of hours and days or countless years,
And boundless aeons, it alike appears
To the crushed victim’s soul ;
Utter despair foresees no termination,
But feels itself of infinite duration ;
The smallest fragment instant comprehends the whole.

The absolute of torture as of bliss
Is timeless, each transcending time and space ;
The one an infinite obscure abyss,
The other an eternal Heaven of grace.
Keeping a little lamp of glimmering light
Companion through the horror of the night,
I laid me down aghast
As he of all who pass death’s quiet portal
Malignantly reserved alone immortal,
In consciousness of bale that must for ever last.

I laid me down and closed my heavy eyes,
As if sleep’s mockery might win true sleep ;
And grew aware, with awe but not surprise,
Blindly aware through all the silence deep,
Of some dark Presence watching by my bed,
The awful image of a nameless dread ;
But I lay still fordone ;
And felt its Shadow on me dark and solemn
And steadfast as a monumental column,
And thought drear thoughts of Doom, and heard the bells chime One.

And then I raised my weary eyes and saw,
By some slant moonlight on the ceiling thrown
And faint lamp-gleam, that Image of my awe,
Still as a pillar of basaltic stone,
But all enveloped in a sombre shroud
Except the wan face drooping heavy-browed,
With sad eyes fixed on mine ;
Sad weary yearning eyes, but fixed remorseless
Upon my eyes yet wearier, that were forceless
To bear the cruel pressure ; cruel, unmalign.

Wherefore I asked for what I knew too well :
O ominous midnight Presence, What art Thou ?
Whereto in tones that sounded like a knell : “
I am the Second Hour, appointed now
To watch beside thy slumberless unrest”
Then I : Thus both, unlike, alike unblest ;
For I should sleep, you fly :
Are not those wings beneath thy mantle moulded ?
O Hour ! unfold those wings so straitly folded,
And urge thy natural flight beneath the moonlit sky.

” My wings shall open when your eyes shall close
In real slumber from this waking drear ;
Your wild unrest is my enforced repose ;
Ere I move hence you must not know me here.”
Could not your wings fan slumber through my brain,
Soothing away its weariness and pain ?
” Your sleep must stir my wings :
Sleep, and I bear you gently on my pinions
Athwart my span of hollow night’s dominions,
Whence hour on hour shall bear to morning’s golden springs.”

That which I ask of you, you ask of me,
O weary Hour, thus standing sentinel
Against your nature, as I feel and see
Against my own your form immovable :
Could I bring Sleep to set you on the wing,
What other thing so gladly would I bring ?
Truly the Poet saith : If that is best whose absence we deplore most,
Whose presence in our longings is the foremost,
What blessings equal Sleep save only love and death ?

I let my lids fall, sick of thought and sense,
But felt that Shadow heavy on my heart ;
And saw the night before me an immense
Black waste of ridge-walls, hour by hour apart,
Dividing deep ravines : from ridge to ridge
Sleep’s flying hour was an aerial bridge ;
But I, whose hours stood fast,
Must climb down painfully each steep side hither,
And climb more painfully each steep side thither,
And so make one hour’s span for years of travail last.

Thus I went down into that first ravine,
Wearily, slowly, blindly, and alone,
Staggering, stumbling, sinking depths unseen,
Shaken and bruised and gashed by stub and stone;
And at the bottom paven with slipperiness,
A torrent-brook rushed headlong with such stress
Against my feeble limbs,
Such fury of wave and foam and icy bleakness
Buffeting insupportably my weakness
That when I would recall, dazed memory swirls and swims.

How I got through I know not, faint as death ;
And then I had to climb the awful scarp,
Creeping with many a pause for panting breath,
Clinging to tangled root and rock-jut sharp ;
Perspiring with faint chills instead of heat,
Trembling, and bleeding hands and knees and feet ;
Falling, to rise anew ;
Until, with lamentable toil and travel
Upon the ridge of arid sand and gravel
I lay supine half-dead and heard the bells chime Two;

And knew a change of Watchers in the room,
Without a stir or sound beside my bed ;
Only the tingling silence of the gloom,
The muffled pulsing of the night’s deep dread ;
And felt an image mightier to appal,
And looked ; the moonlight on the bed-foot wall
And corniced ceiling white
Was slanting now ; and in the midst stood solemn
And hopeless as a black sepulchral column
A steadfast shrouded Form, the Third Hour of the night.

The fixed regard implacably austere,
Yet none the less ineffably forlorn.
Something transcending all my former fear
Came jarring through my shattered frame outworn:
I knew that crushing rock could not be stirred ;
I had no heart to say a single word,
But closed my eyes again ;
And set me shuddering to the task stupendous
Of climbing down and up that gulph tremendous
Unto the next hour-ridge beyond Hope’s farthest ken.

Men sigh and plain and wail how life is brief :
Ah yes, our bright eternities of bliss
Are transient, rare, minute beyond belief,
Mere star-dust meteors in Time’s night-abyss ;
Ah no, our black eternities intense
Of bale are lasting, dominant, immense,
As Time which is their breath ;
The memory of the bliss is yearning sorrow,
The memory of the bale clouds every morrow
Darkening through nights and days unto the night of Death.

No human words could paint my travail sore
In the thick darkness of the next ravine,
Deeper immeasurably than that before ;
When hideous agonies, unheard, unseen,
In overwhelming floods of torture roll,
And horrors of great darkness drown the soul,
To be is not to be
In memory save as ghastliest impression,
And chaos of demoniacal possession
shuddered on the ridge, and heard the bells chime Three.

And like a pillar of essential gloom,
Most terrible in stature and regard,
Black in the moonlight filling all the room
The Image of the Fourth Hour, evil-starred,
Stood over me ; but there was Something more,
Something behind It undiscerned before,
More dreadful than Its dread,
Which overshadowed it as with a
fateful Inexorable fascination hateful,
A wan and formless Shade from regions of the dead.

I shut my eyes against that spectral Shade,
Which yet allured them with a deadly charm,
And that black Image of the Hour, dismayed
By such tremendous menacing of harm ;
And so into the gulph as into Hell ;
Where what immeasurable depths I fell,
With seizures of the heart
Whose each clutch seemed the end of all pulsation,
And tremors of exanimate prostration,
Are horrors in my soul that never can depart.

If I for hope or wish had any force,
It was that I might rush down sharply hurled
From rock to rock until a mangled corse
Down with the fury of the torrent whirled,
The fury of black waters and white foam,
To where the homeless find their only home,
In the immense void Sea,
Whose isles are worlds, surrounding, unsurrounded,
Whose depths no mortal plummet ever sounded,
Beneath all surface storm calm in Eternity.

Such hope or wish was as a feeble spark,
‘ A little lamp’s pale glimmer in a tomb,
To just reveal the hopeless deadly dark
And wordless horrors of my soul’s fixed doom :
Yet some mysterious instinct obstinate,
Blindly unconscious as a law of Fate,
Still urged me on and bore
My shattered being through the unfeared peril
Of death less hateful than the life as sterile :
I shuddered on the ridge, and heard the bells chime Four.

The Image of that Fifth Hour of the night
Was blacker in the moonlight now aslant
Upon its left than on its shrouded right ;
And over and behind It, dominant,
The Shadow not Its shadow cast its spell,
Most vague and dim and wan and terrible,
Death’s ghastly aureole,
Pregnant with overpowering fascination,
Commanding by repulsive instigation,
Despair’s envenomed anodyne to tempt the Soul.

I closed my eyes, but could no longer keep
Under that Image and most awful Shade,
Supine in mockery of blissful sleep,
Delirious with such fierce thirst unallayed ;
Of all worst agonies the most unblest
Is passive agony of wild unrest :
Trembling and faint I rose,
And dressed with painful efforts, and descended
With furtive footsteps and with breath suspended,
And left the slumbering house with my unslumbering woes.

Constrained to move through the unmoving hours,
Accurst from rest because the hours stood still ;
Feeling the hands of the Infernal Powers
Heavy upon me for enormous ill,
Inscrutable intolerable pain,
Against which mortal pleas and prayers are vain,
Gaspings of dying breath,
And human struggles, dying spasms yet vainer :
Renounce defence when Doom is the Arraigner ;
Let impotence of Life subside appeased in Death.

I paced the silent and deserted streets
In cold dark shade and chillier moonlight grey ;
Pondering a dolorous series of defeats
And black disasters from life’s opening day,
Invested with the shadow of a doom
That filled the Spring and Summer with a gloom
Most wintry bleak and drear ;
Gloom from within as from a sulphurous censer
Making the glooms without for ever denser,
To blight the buds and flowers and fruitage of my year.

Against a bridge’s stony parapet
I leaned, and gazed into the waters black ;
And marked an angry morning red and wet
Beneath a livid and enormous rack
Glare out confronting the belated moon,
Huddled and wan and feeble as the swoon
Of featureless Despair :
When some stray workman, half-asleep but lusty,
Passed urgent through the rainpour wild and gusty,
I felt a ghost already, planted watching there.

As phantom to its grave, or to its den
Some wild beast of the night when night is sped,
I turned unto my homeless home again
To front a day only less charged with dread
Than that dread night ; and after day, to front
Another night of what would be the brunt ?
I put the thought aside,
To be resumed when common life unfolded
In common daylight had my brain remoulded ;
Meanwhile the flaws of rain refreshed and fortified.

The day passed, and the night ; and other days,
And other nights ; and all of evil doom ;
The sun-hours in a sick bewildering haze,
The star-hours in a thick enormous gloom,
With rending lightnings and with thunder-knells ;
The ghastly hours of all the timeless Hells :
Bury them with their bane ! I look back on the words already written,
And writhe by cold rage stung, by self-scorn smitten,
They are so weak and vain and infinitely inane. . .
.
” How from those hideous Malebolges deep
I ever could win back to upper earth,
Restored to human nights of blessed sleep
And healthy waking with the new day’s birth ? “-
How do men climb back from a swoon whose stress,
Crushing far deeper than all consciousness,
Is deep as deep death seems ?
Who can the steps and stages mete and number
By which we re-emerge from nightly slumber?
Our poor vast petty life is one dark maze of dreams.

Transcripts of the Magonomia Bestiary Kickstarter episodes

I’ve put the transcripts for the Magonomia Bestiary episodes into a single pdf. Please be aware it hasn’t been laid out, edited or playtested by professionals, so it is far lower in quality than the finished book.

Monsters that didn’t make it

Three creatures that I considered pitching didn’t make it as far as me offering them for the Magonomia Bestiary. They’re still suitable for your table, but not right for the tone of this book.

This is the last episode for the Bestiary Kickstart: it ends on November 24 at 9:00 (US) EST.

George, the Minotaur d’Amour

This minotaur was originally designed as the creature at the centre of the Royal Exchange. He was to twist the perception of the humans nearby. This would make the world’s first shopping centre confusingly labyrinthine, and explain impulse purchases. I couldn’t land the idea, so I reworked it all in the Urban Wisps.

HC: The Minotaur d’Amour
T: Lives in a society that equates beauty and goodness
A: Misplaced Classical monster
A: Just a normal, workmanlike guy once you get past the whole minotaur thing.
S: Parting is such sorrow: See the Urban Wisps in the Magonomia Bestiary for the spell here. I sold it to Shewstone….(shrugs).
S: Cheap imitations of heirlooms of old: If George can handle a monetarily-valuable object, he can make a passable forgery of it in his workshop.

Skills: Crafts 5, Fighting 4, Physique 4, Athletics 3, Notice 3, Resource 3, Empathy 2, Lore 2, Stealth 2, Will 2, Contacts 1, Investigation 1, Provocation 1, Rapport 1.

Stress Physical 6, Mental 4.
Consequences: Mild, Medium, Severe.

The problems with the minotaur are several. In the original myth, the minotaur is a single guy, called Asterion. He’s not representative of a faerie race: he’s the lovechild of a queen and a sacred bull. How do I get him into Elizabethan London without doing something odd about the Queen, or using time travel? There are options (a statute bought to life, for example) but they are tough to work through. Even if you find one you like (for example that Jane Seymour died in childbed because she had twins, one a minotaur and the other King Edward VI) you still need to explain why he’s in the basement of the shopping centre.

His name comes from the plot hook that he was going to be desired to supplement the enchantment of for Dudley’s Love Castle. This doesn’t work for a couple of reasons. Americans don’t pronounce minotaur to rhyme with amour. Also, at least one early reader thought I was making up Robert Dudley’s Enchanted Love Castle, by which I meant the entirely real Kenilworth. Dudley tries to convince Elizabeth to marry him during a 19 day stay there in 1575, and he pulls out all of the stops by way of entertainment.

The word “amour”, which is Latin and French for “love” is believed in period to etymologically derive from the word for “hook”. For a while I toyed with him being able to take hearts and keep them alive outside the body, or take the beats out of hearts so that people felt listless when outside the shops. This was too powerful for what I wanted. Also, I though for a while of him using a hook and chain as his weapon (+2). It’s a popular piece of tackle used for loading cargo, so it doesn’t require a stretch for him to have one in the warehouse sections of the shops, but I’m not sure he’s best as a combat menace. If he does fight with a chain and hook, I’d give him an extra stunt that let’s him skip across a combat zone by swinging on it, like Indiana Jones does with his whip.

The Moonlight Shadow Witch

HC: Recursive Witch
T: Is trapped in a mirror
A: Unshakeable love
A; Famous artefact among British magicians
S: Come to, talk to, me: The haunted mirror can sense divinationary skill and surreptitiously move toward those who have it. Imagine how the One Ring seems to find its way Sauronwards when not held up by hobbits.
S: Stars move slowly: When divining using the possessed mirror, a character gains +2 on Astrology rolls. Swap this around to make your PCs want it more, if you like.

Skills: Astronomy* 4, Lore 3, Notice 3, Fighting 2, Rapport 2, Will 2, Crafts 1, Empathy 1, Investigation 1, Physique 1. *Or whatever entices your players.

Stress: Physical 1*, Mental 4. * Is literally in a glass mirror. If able to manifest outside the mirror somehow, this becomes 3.
Consequences: Mild, moderate, severe

This creature is based on a deliberate misreading of the lyrics of a tune called “Moonlight Shadow” by Mike Oldfield.. On my podcast I get a lot of mileage out of taking metaphorical things literally. She didn’t pass muster because she’s not so much a character as an embodied inciting incident. Also, she’s presumably a derived work. I don’t think Moonlight Shadow is based on folklore, so I couldn’t have sold her to Andrew and Vesna.

There’s a witch who gets a bad feeling (from the whispering winds in the trees) and scries her lover in a mirror. She sees him shot by a man on the run, while in the middle of a crowd. She tries to reach him with magic, but cannot. She pushes her power well past what’s possible for her, and dies.

This being the great tragedy of her life, the event leaves a ghost. Any skilled player character who tries to scry with her mirror on the anniversary of her death sees the witch, scrying in the same mirror, and seeing her lover die. Even unskilled people can see her at the moment of the anniversary, but given that’s at 4 am, not a lot of people are up and about.

The player characters can conclude the whole thing by finding the lover’s remains and reburying them by the witch’s. This leaves her mirror unhaunted, and grants it as a treasure. For example, perhaps this is how the player character explains a higher level of skill in a Science, or the availability of a new spell. The mechanics are embodied in the game setting by the antique scrying mirror.

Long Lankin

Lankin is a killer who murders a baby and mother. He’s found in the Child Ballads and various other places. My problem with him is that there wasn’t enough specificity to make him a distinct monster. There are two variants to the story. The older, found mostly in Scotland says that Lankin was a mason who had been refused his wages by the lord after building a castle. The version below, which is found more often in England, has him as a perhaps-shapeshifting spirit of the fens and waters. That arguably makes him a troll, but not in the sense that its being used in the rest of the Magonomia Bestiary, but in the Danish sense of trollishness being an attribute one can gain and lose. There’s a touch of folklore about that suggests his name, which is often given as “lambkin” indicates he had pale skin, as a symptom of leprosy, and that the blood of a baby was though a curative. I didn’t want to use any of that. This left me stymied for a reason to give him supernatural gifts.

Since the book has come out, I did find another poem that has given me what I needed, though. Let’s look at the two texts. Here’s one version of Long Lankin. There is, by the way, a good recording of this by Steeleye Span you could use as a gaming prop.

SAID my lord to his ladye,
as he mounted his horse,
Take care of Long Lankyn,
who lies in the moss.

Said my lord to his ladye,
as he rode away,
Take care of Long Lankyn,
who lies in the clay.

Let the doors be all bolted,
and the windows all pinned,
And leave not a hole
for a mouse to creep in.

Then he kissed his fair ladye,
and he rode away;
He must be in London
before break of day.

The doors were all bolted,
and the windows were pinned,
All but one little window,
where Long Lankyn crept in.

‘Where is the lord of this house?’
said Long Lankyn:
‘He is gone to fair London,’
said the false nurse to him.

‘Where is the ladye of this house?’
said Long Lankyn:
‘She’s asleep in her chamber,’
said the false nurse to him.

‘Where is the heir of this house?’
said Long Lankyn:
‘He’s asleep in his cradle,’
said the false nurse to him.

***

‘We’ll prick him, and prick him,
all over with a pin,
And that will make your ladye
to come down to him.’

So she pricked him and pricked,
all over with a pin,
And the nurse held a basin
for the blood to run in.

‘Oh nurse, how you sleep!
Oh nurse, how you snore!
And you leave my little son Johnstone
to cry and to roar.’

‘I’ve tried him with suck,
and I’ve tried him with pap;
So come down, my fair ladye,
and nurse him in your lap.’

‘Oh nurse, how you sleep!
Oh nurse, how you snore!
And you leave my little son Johnstone
to cry and to roar.’

‘I’ve tried him with apples,
I’ve tried him with pears;
So come down, my fair ladye,
and rock him in your chair.’

‘How can I come down,
’tis so late in the night,
When there’s no candle burning,
nor fire to give light?’

‘You have three silver mantles
as bright as the sun;
So come down, my fair ladye,
by the light of one.’

***

‘Oh spare me, Long Lankyn,
oh spare me till twelve o’clock,
you shall have as much gold
as you can carry on your back.’

‘If I had as much gold
as would build me a tower,’
. . . . . (Two lines are missing from the original here)
. . . . .

‘Oh spare me, Long Lankyn,
oh spare me one hour,
You shall have my daughter Betsy,
She is a sweet flower.’

‘Where is your daughter Betsy?
she may do some good;
She can hold the silver basin,
to catch your heart’s blood.’

***

Lady Betsy was sitting
in her window so high,
And she saw her father,
as he was riding by.

‘Oh father, oh father,
don’t lay the blame on me;
’Twas the false nurse and Long Lankyn
that killed your ladye.’

***

Then Long Lankyn was hanged
on a gallows so high,
And the false nurse was burnt
in a fire just by.

One way to have extended it would have been to use a hint from The Highwayman’s Ghost by Richard Garret. Note that ghosts in the Tudor period had a distinct solidness to them: they didn’t so much walk through doors as supernaturally push them open. The following reading is via Librivox, with thanks to JakeW.

TWELVE o’clock–a misty night–
Glimpsing hints of buried light–
Six years strung in an iron chain–
Time I stood on the ground again!
So–by your leave! Slip, easy enough,
Withered wrists from the rusty cuff,
The old chain rattles, the old wood groans,
O the clatter of clacking bones!
Here I am, uncoated, unhatted,
Shirt all mildewed, hair all matted,
Sockets that each have royally
Fed the crow a precious eye.
O for slashing Bess the brown!
Where, old lass, have they earthed thee down?
Sobb’st beneath a carrier’s thong?
Strain’st a coalman’s cart along?
Shame to foot it!–must be so.
See, the mists are smitten below;
Over the moorland, wide away,
Moonshine pours her watery day.
There the long white-dusted track,
There a crawling speck of black.
The Northern mail, ha, ha! and he
There on the box is Anthony.
Coachman I scared him from brown or grey,
Witness he lied my blood away.Haste,
Fred! haste, boy! never fail!
Now or never! catch the mail!
The horses plunge, and sweating stop.
Dead falls Tony, neck and crop.
Nay, good guard, small profit thus,
Shooting ghosts with a blunderbuss!
Crash wheel! coach over! How it rains
Hampers, ladies, wigs, and canes!
O the spoil! to sack it and lock it!
But, woe is me, I have never a pocket!

So, this gives me a sort of revenant Lankin for the player characters to seek. He’s got a list of people he wants to do ill to, and he’s checking them off. They want to get the PCs involved, although they may not know precisely who is after them. A corrupt set of local officials who believe they are being punished for something they truly did wrong may not, initially, be able to determine that hanging Lankin is what started these murders.

HC: Highwayman’s Revenant
T: Wants to have the pleasures of mortality, but is a wind-mummified corpse.
A: Driven by resentment
A: Diabolic reputation
S: The slightly-rubbery form of this monster allows him to enter into tiny spaces (Burglary +2, when he can use his odd physiology to surprise)
S: Knows the land for miles about (+2 Lore for his local area)
S: If he suddenly appears, he can cause a severe shock to most people (Will +2 to Create Advantage Severe Shock).
Skills: Burglary 5, Fighting 4, Riding 4, Athletics 3, Lore 3, Stealth 3, Contacts 2, Notice 2
Physique 2, Shooting 2, Crafts 1, Investigation 1, Resources 1, Warcraft 1, Will 1.
Stress: Physical 4, Mental 4.
Consequences: Mild, moderate, severe

Cut plot hooks relating to sexual violence

I took over the unicorn and basilisk after another author had to step aside from this project, and initially I wrote them both closely tied to folklore. The unicorn needed a serious rework after I’d finished it. I didn’t get past our sensitivity reader because I was working the “virginity” angle as a plot hook.

Unicorn

To me it seemed like a worthwhile connection. Elizabeth makes a lot of political capital out of her virginity. She’s constantly offering to consider marriage to foreign nobles, and then moving on. For American readers, the first English colony in your country was named Virginia in a complement to her. It could have been Gloriana, but no. I live in a state called Queensland in Australia. No, though, they went with Virginia. Similarly the first European-descended baby in the colony was Virginia Dare. She’s got a Wikipedia page and shows up in your art. I first heard about her when I was a twentysomething listening to Tori Amos. Some of the Americans reading this know Dare’s name, but don’t know how weird that is. Other colonial governors didn’t deliberately name their grandkids to flatter the monarch, let alone her virginity.

I’m Australian. What was the name of the first white baby in Australia? We don’t know. No-one made a fuss about it and as I’ve aged, different answers have emerged from historians scraping ideas out of period accounts. The name that I was told might be right, when I was an undergraduate, doesn’t even appear on the lists anymore. The name that was the consensus for a while after that, Rebecca Small, was discredited when someone noticed she was, in the the period account, the first “free-born” baby. Most historians believe there were approximately twenty babies born to convict mothers before her. We have no idea who most of them were.

The dark horse in this historical puzzle is Seebaer van Nieuwelant, who was born to a woman on a Dutch whaling vessel before New South Wales was settled. The problem is his name literally means “Seaborn in the New Land”, so was he born on ship, or on Dirk Hartog Island? We don’t know, and regardless, he’s not named after Queen Victoria’s hymen. I’m only mentioning him because I think his name’s perfect for a selkie.

So, a plot hook was cut. It mentions that Elizabeth had a guardian who tried to sexually abuse her into marriage. This was Thomas Seymour, a perfect villain for games in which King Edward or Queen Jane survive. He was the brother of Jane Seymour (previous Queen and mother of King Edward). After Henry VIII died he married Katherine Parr, Henry’s final wife. She was one of the richest women in the kingdom and Elizabeth’s formal guardian. Thomas’s brother, yet another Edward, was effectively regent for the prince. He thought his brother was a worm and tried to get him to go away with an enormous bribe. A barony and the Admiralty worked for a while, but eventually Thomas became his nephew’s favourite relative.

Thomas waged several campaigns to marry Elizabeth. There was, at this point, no strong claim that she would ever become Queen. King Edward would, it was hoped, have children. Henry VIII’s will removed his daughters from the line of succession. King Edward, likewise, pushed the crown to his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, so that his Catholic, legally illegitimate, sister would be excluded. There is a chance, though, that he though he might be king.

Remember that at this stage, our modern belief that the husband of the Queen is just some random guy wasn’t certain then. Skipping Jane, the next regnant Queen, Mary, gave the title of King to her husband, Phillip of Spain. Similarly, the first regnant queen after Elizabeth, Mary, was co-ruler with her husband King William. Our modern certainty that the queen’s husband is just a guy comes, I believe, from Queen-Empress Victoria telling everyone it was so.

Elizabeth held Thomas off with legions of maids, shrew politics, and cutting letters

Here’s the hook:

The Virginity Test

Monarchs maintain menageries of odd creatures as a show of opulence and influence. England’s is in the Tower of London. A friendly non-player wishes to give a unicorn to Her Majesty. To ensure they gain the maximum social cachet they want to present it as a surprise gift at court. As an alternative, the Spanish ambassador may bring it as a gift. This is a dreadfully bad idea. characters may be sent to steal or surreptitiously kill a unicorn that the intelligence services have heard is to be presented to Her Majesty. Poison won’t work, so the characters will need to find a different, but equally discrete, way of killing or removing the animal.

If the unicorn refuses to put its head on the Virgin Queen’s lap, then her statements to foreign princes that she might be available for marriage no longer carry weight. Her story that she is “married to the realm” is damaged. Catholic rumours that she is living adulterously with Lord Darnley are furthered. If she refuses to face the test of the unicorn, that is interpreted as a confession. Even if Elizabeth is not having a relationship with Darnley, she may want to refuse the test, because rumours insist one of her early guardians attempted to force her into marriage by molesting her.

Satyrs

Similarly, there was a plot hook cut from satyrs because there was a theme of sexual violence to it. Eventually the satyrs were completely reworked as fauns, creatures from Industrial Era folklore. The idea that the reason you don’t see satyrs anymore is because trooping faeries have hunted them to extinction is from Lamia by John Keats, a Romantic poet from the 19th Century. The part I’m referencing is:

Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
Before King Oberon’s bright diadem,
Sceptre, and mantle, clasp’d with dewy gem,
Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip’d lawns,
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left
His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:

Here’s the hook:

Peace with Titania 
 
Titania’s hatred of satyrs is based on her knowing most of the women in Ovid’s Metamorphoses which is filled with gods and mystical beings either raping women or women fleeing attempted rape until they are transformed into trees and animals, which isn’t acknowledged as harm. She’s not correct that all satyrs behave like this: each silenus has raised his sons differently and the tribes who have survived are those who are cautious of interacting with humans.  
 
Titania’s hatred of satyrs is a prejudice she formed thousands of years ago on the other side of the continent. If the player characters can convince her local satyrs are not the same as the ancient tribes, her policy to them can change. The satyrs she remembers were riotous mobs  of Dionysius worshippers accompanied by drug-frenzied humans. The player characters might convince her that satyrs have a place in her court. Some could serve as counsellors, warriors or musicians in exchange for her protection for the rest of their tribe. The player characters might, instead, demonstrate that the satyrs are insignificant, compared to the other enemies which could be faced. 

The character we moved toward is The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, which comes from The Wind in the Willows. As a setup to this extract, a young otter named Portly has gone missing, so Rat and Mole paddle upriver to look for him. Rat begins to hear an ethereal music within the sounds of nature. Ars Magica players will spot the regio right away. The reader for this extract is Cori Samuels, who released it into the public domain via Librivox. Thanks to Cori and her production team.

***

“It’s gone!” sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. “So beautiful and strange and new! Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!” he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound.

“Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,” he said presently. “O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.”

The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. “I hear nothing myself,” he said, “but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.”

The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported, trembling, he was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing that caught up his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless but happy infant in a strong sustaining grasp.

In silence Mole rowed steadily, and soon they came to a point where the river divided, a long backwater branching off to one side. With a slight movement of his head Rat, who had long dropped the rudder-lines, directed the rower to take the backwater. The creeping tide of light gained and gained, and now they could see the colour of the flowers that gemmed the water’s edge.

“Clearer and nearer still,” cried the Rat joyously. “Now you must surely hear it! Ah—at last—I see you do!”

Breathless and transfixed, the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid run of that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed him utterly. He saw the tears on his comrade’s cheeks, and bowed his head and understood. For a space they hung there, brushed by the purple loosestrife that fringed the bank; then the clear imperious summons that marched hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody imposed its will on Mole, and mechanically he bent to his oars again. And the light grew steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they were wont to do at the approach of dawn; and but for the heavenly music all was marvellously still.

On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grass seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the approaching weir began to hold the air, and they felt a consciousness that they were nearing the end, whatever it might be, that surely awaited their expedition.

A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders of green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank, troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating foam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn and soothing rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir’s shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.

Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken, tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn of a marvellous green, set round with Nature’s own orchard-trees—crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.

“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,” whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend, and saw him at his side, cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humorously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!”

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.

Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.

As they stared blankly, in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses, and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and light-hearted as before.

Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in a puzzled sort of way. “I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?” he asked.

“I think I was only remarking,” said Rat slowly, “that this was the right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. And look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!” And with a cry of delight he ran towards the slumbering Portly.

But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can recapture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory for a brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.

Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and wriggled with pleasure at the sight of his father’s friends, who had played with him so often in past days. In a moment, however, his face grew blank, and he fell to hunting round in a circle with pleading whine. As a child that has fallen happily asleep in its nurse’s arms, and wakes to find itself alone and laid in a strange place, and searches corners and cupboards, and runs from room to room, despair growing silently in its heart, even so Portly searched the island and searched, dogged and unwearying, till at last the black moment came for giving it up, and sitting down and crying bitterly.

The Mole ran quickly to comfort the little animal; but Rat, lingering, looked long and doubtfully at certain hoof-marks deep in the sward.

“Some—great—animal—has been here,” he murmured slowly and thoughtfully; and stood musing, musing; his mind strangely stirred.

“Come along, Rat!” called the Mole. “Think of poor Otter, waiting up there by the ford!”

Portly had soon been comforted by the promise of a treat—a jaunt on the river in Mr. Rat’s real boat; and the two animals conducted him to the water’s side, placed him securely between them in the bottom of the boat, and paddled off down the backwater. The sun was fully up by now, and hot on them, birds sang lustily and without restraint, and flowers smiled and nodded from either bank, but somehow—so thought the animals—with less of richness and blaze of colour than they seemed to remember seeing quite recently somewhere—they wondered where.

The main river reached again, they turned the boat’s head upstream, towards the point where they knew their friend was keeping his lonely vigil. As they drew near the familiar ford, the Mole took the boat in to the bank, and they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs on the tow-path, gave him his marching orders and a friendly farewell pat on the back, and shoved out into mid-stream. They watched the little animal as he waddled along the path contentedly and with importance; watched him till they saw his muzzle suddenly lift and his waddle break into a clumsy amble as he quickened his pace with shrill whines and wriggles of recognition. Looking up the river, they could see Otter start up, tense and rigid, from out of the shallows where he crouched in dumb patience, and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he bounded up through the osiers on to the path. Then the Mole, with a strong pull on one oar, swung the boat round and let the full stream bear them down again whither it would, their quest now happily ended.

“I feel strangely tired, Rat,” said the Mole, leaning wearily over his oars, as the boat drifted. “It’s being up all night, you’ll say, perhaps; but that’s nothing. We do as much half the nights of the week, at this time of the year. No; I feel as if I had been through something very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over; and yet nothing particular has happened.”

“Or something very surprising and splendid and beautiful,” murmured the Rat, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I feel just as you do, Mole; simply dead tired, though not body-tired. It’s lucky we’ve got the stream with us, to take us home. Isn’t it jolly to feel the sun again, soaking into one’s bones! And hark to the wind playing in the reeds!”

“It’s like music—far-away music,” said the Mole, nodding drowsily.

“So I was thinking,” murmured the Rat, dreamful and languid. “Dance-music—the lilting sort that runs on without a stop—but with words in it, too—it passes into words and out of them again—I catch them at intervals—then it is dance-music once more, and then nothing but the reeds’ soft thin whispering.”

“You hear better than I,” said the Mole sadly. “I cannot catch the words.”

“Let me try and give you them,” said the Rat softly, his eyes still closed. “Now it is turning into words again—faint but clear—Lest the awe should dwell—And turn your frolic to fret—You shall look on my power at the helping hour—But then you shall forget! Now the reeds take it up—forget, forget, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle and a whisper. Then the voice returns—

“Lest limbs be reddened and rent—I spring the trap that is set—As I loose the snare you may glimpse me there—For surely you shall forget! Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows each minute fainter.

“Helper and healer, I cheer—Small waifs in the woodland wet—Strays I find in it, wounds I bind in it—Bidding them all forget! Nearer, Mole, nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.”

“But what do the words mean?” asked the wondering Mole.

“That I do not know,” said the Rat simply. “I passed them on to you as they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing, simple—passionate—perfect—”

“Well, let’s have it, then,” said the Mole, after he had waited patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.

But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a smile of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening look still lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep.

The Street Cry of the Afanc Egg Seller

I took a few liberties with the history of street cries here. Let’s step back for some context.

The biggest market in London during the reign was Stocks Market. If you’re looking for its historic site, due to one of those twists of history, it is underneath Mansion House, the formal residence of the Lord Mayor of London. The market was set up for the coronation of Edward I in 1272, because people thought all the hawkers along Cheapside were a security threat to his coronation procession, or at least they were unsightly, poor, and noisy. They were all moved to the new site, and laws were passed to make stallholding where people had traditionally held markets illegal. This did not work. Similarly monarchs since, including Elizabeth, attempted to stamp out street pedlars, and force people to go to the market. This, also, did not work at all. In 1345 the poulterers, fish-sellers and butchers of Cheapside were again moved on to Stocks Market. Eventually the market became too large and smaller parts broke off for other premises. Speaking loosely, the stocks was the “fish and flesh” market. Annoyingly if you wanted vegetables, you’d need to hike over to Saint Paul’s Churchyard. We have to visit that area in Magonomia eventually. It was also the centre of London’s book trade.

If you were rich, you’d want meat from the Stocks Market just because people who bought from there were sick there less often. It was by one of the little rivers that snaked through London, Wallbrook. Water from it was used to wash things down. It even had a rudimentary sort of flushing toilets in period. By the game period it was controlled by the Wardens of London Bridge, who rented out canopies for life tenures.

Its name comes from the stocks, the punishment device, which was in Stocks Market. I’d have put it near the fruit sellers, but they didn’t ask me. This was the one set of stocks for the city of London. This seems less unlikely when you remember that, at this point, many parts of modern London were separate towns and villages. This is also the origin of the modern word “stockmarket” although if you wanted to invest and do financial things in period, you’d do better over at coffee houses near the Royal Exchange. Stockbrokers weren’t allowed in the Royal Exchange itself, because their manners were bad, something they really leaned in on with the “men shouting in a pit” model that immediately predated computerisation.

So, the stock market is crowded and loud. , and if you are street peddling you need people to look up from their work and come out into the street to buy your stuff. Enter the street cry. Street cries have been recorded since Roman times, but the sort of melodic street cry we have included here is most well known from the Victorian period.

It’s very long for a street cry, but there are recorded examples which are even longer. These focus on goods the customers do not know, and would not otherwise wish to buy. So, the street cry in London for fresh fish was a couple of words, whereas the street cries for apothecaries, which are the closest thing we get to street cries from magicians, sound more like snake-oil patter. They talk about how rare the ingredients are, how far they have been shipped, and how many things they can cure.

Eventually, in London and other cities with strong guilds, people with staples developed a single cry for each product, so if you heard a particular tune, even if you couldn’t make out the words, you’d know it was being said. Over in the Venetian stories we had the alternative, the American consul to Venice reported he kept seeing a girl with bloodshot eyes in his street, and he discovered she was a pear seller who yelled the name of her wares so loud each day that it caused the haemorrhaging. I’m reminded that locally a company has reconditioned a set of old ice cream trucks, and so my children have learned that a truck playing Greensleeves in the street is offering ice cream. Greensleeves really wasn’t written by Henry VIII to seduce the Queen’s mother, but you could use it that way if you wanted. We know King Hal had his own band and performed on stage.

We know there were street cries in London a century before Elizabeth’s reign, because a poem from 1410 says that vendors were crying “strawberries ripe and cherries on the rise”. I should record that poem eventually: it’s called The London Lickpenny and has a man touring the capital and being ripped off. You’ve probably heard the Victorian version of “Strawberries Ripe”. It is in the musical “Oliver!” as part of the market cry melody. I’m not a musical person, so I won’t torture you with any of the instruments I play badly. I’m not sure when it swapped from a plain cry to a melodic cry, but there’s my tenuous link to say that a likely lad could have come up with a performance poem to sell monster eggs, and because they are a new product, he needed it to be long.

Lad, in this case, because I came up with it when I was standing about doing COVID chaperoning at work when, I had a day dream as clear as day in which a version of the Artful Dodger came up to me and said “Scoop of the arsebiter eggs, gov? Fresh today.” He would not, in the real world have said “fresh”, which in period meant “unsalted”. He would have said “new”: there are period records of fishwives calling that they had “new salmon”, for example.

When I was writing it, I did have a tune in mind. It’s the second line of Three Blind Mice, but with the pauses moved around (“See how they-run” becomes “arse bi-ter eggs”). The even verses us a version of Pop Goes the Weasel with a similar bit of shifting about. The sad thing here is that I have accidentally used the very best known of the surviving street cries for an already existing product, and no-one in period would have done that. Three Blind Mice shares its tune with Hot Cross Buns which managed to escape extinction by becoming a nursery rhyme. There’s a way out for me, yet, though.

A few other cries have similarly survived as fossils in other work. The somewhat chesty lady in the episode art is a statue representing Molly Malone, a famous fishmonger and ghost of old Dublin town whose cry you can here in many Irish pubs on the regular. As anyone who has gone to these things knows, there are traditional gestures for when drunkenly sings the bit about “cockles and mussels” To make the arse bitter eggs song different from Hot Cross Buns, you just need to slap your arse hard enough for it to be a percussive element before each line. In a way this is an unnecessary precaution, because hot cross buns used to be a festive food only available for a brief window after Lent. Some versions of the song say that they are made only on Good Friday. It seems odd that something heard so little is the great survivor of the Darwinian song contest of the market, but they were pitched as a treat for children, which is how the song slid across to the nursery.

Beer, satyrs, and lions

Satyrs are a problem. We wanted them for Magonomia., because they turn up in the folklore. They are, however, really rapey. That’s also considered a bit humorous in some period work. So, we wanted satyrs, but without any of the baggage. I took it three ways to get there.

Satyrs change form over time. The earliest ones are ipotanes: horse headed humans with huge generative members. These become the modern goat satyrs well before period. That’s why we have an older and a younger form in the story, and why we have space to generate a third general form. There’s an idea in alchemy that you can grow artificial humans, which are sometimes called homunculi. I drew on that, because it lets me cut all the rapes out.

The idea that they are generated in wine, and that wine is not common in Britain, let me bring in interesting changes in technology, like fortified wine. I also wanted to bring in folklore about beer, but a lot of it was removed because I was showing too much of my research, and not pitching directly to people’s play experience. I’ve discussed Thirteenth Century brewing in episode 47 but fortified wines hit Britain later than this period. I needed a fortified beverage, so I deliberately used some ortolan folklore from a episode 63. That brings us to beer.

Most of the origin folklore for beer comes from Germany. I had a heap of it, and then looking at it thought “There are a heap of people, ages away from the player characters, doing irrelevant stuff, here” so I cut it out. It’s about King Gambrinus, and I thought I’d be dragging him into Britain through the Dutch immigrants fleeing the Spanish in the Netherlands. What I didn’t know, and do now, is that some British people had claimed him, the inventor of beer, as a mythical English king.

I’m not quite sure how a drinking song can have 59 stanzas. Australian drinking songs tend to be far simpler. I mention this because that’s the stanza of “The Ex-ale-tation of Ale” that mentions him. Time for a quote – I won’t sing because life is hard enough.

To the praise of Gambrivius, that good British king
That devis’d for the nation by the Welshmen’s tale
Seventeen hundred years before Christ did spring
The happy invention of a pot of good ale.

This goes back to a history of Bavaria which was released in 1523, which mixed the folktale that a German king invented ale with the known fact that the Egyptians had beer, by suggesting he was Isis’s lover. There are several potential kings that people associate with Gambrivius, and the one I chose to use was John I, Duke of Brabant. He was a folk hero of the area which later becames the Spanish Netherlands, so his people coming across the Channel worked out for me. He loved drinking, jousts and fathering illegitimate children. His heraldic symbol is the lion. Brewing has been a feminised profession for some time, so I went with lionesses.

Did I accidentally invent catgirls from scratch? Yes, I did. Sorry.

Sources for the Magonomia Bestiary

Well, for my parts, anyway.

Afanc egg seller song
Aside from “Who will buy?” from the musical Oliver! which owes a bit to Cherry Ripe by Robert Herrick, this ditty goes back to the histories of London street cries. The earliest one recorded is in a poem called The London Lickpenny by John Lydgate. I also found inspiration in what my notes say was The Cries of London, but there are so many books of that name I can’t be sure which.

Basilisk
The basic definitions come from The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville who was borrowing a bit from Pliny. There’s not a great public domain translation of this book. The gold standard was edited and translated by Stephen A. Barney and others and was published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. The farming of basilisks is the Schedula diversarum artium by Theophilus Presbyter.

Dragons and Sockburn Worm
The key text for these ideas was Chapter 8 of Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders by William Henderson. The Sockburn Worm is literally the Jabberwock from the poem of the same name by Lewis Carrol. (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_folk-lore_of_the_northern_counties_of_England_and_the_borders/Chapter_8)

Eala
“The Twa Sisters” is a story found in many areas of Northern Britain. The version I have used here is Ballad 10 in The Child Ballads. They aren’t for children: their collector was Francis Child. My favourite version is sung be Loreena McKennitt on her album The Mask and the Mirror and is on Youtube at https://youtu.be/JsNJuhBfbPg

Fauns
The version of fauns we are dodging comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The version we are moving toward is basically the Piper at the Gates of Dawn from The Wind in the Willows. The Pardia are novel to this book, but based on the pard in the Bodelian Bestiary. Gambrinus’s myth turns up in Annals of Bavaria by Johannes Aventinus. There’s also an English folk song called The Ex-ale-tation of Ale which mentions him.

Grim, King of the Ghosts
Grim originally appears in a song called The Lunatick Lover. My favourite version is https://youtu.be/OWZbwsHhLZ4 Textually that can be traced back to Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, And Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets, (chiefly of the Lyric Kind.) Together With Some Few of Later Date. by Bishop Thomas Percy.
Grim was expanded in an anonymous book called Tales of Terror. Older versions claim to be by “Monk” Lewis, but he wasn’t the author. There’s a free pdf of it at https://books.google.com.au/books?id=MNgIAAAAQAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Art inspirations include Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death and Matthus Merian’s Todten Tanz.

Haid
The haid are just a variant of tiny faerie with a Welsh word for “horde” as their name. They come from a brief note in The Fairy Mythology by Thomas Keightley. (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41006/41006-h/41006-h.htm)

Kenidjack
This demon is lifted whole from Robert Hunt’s Popular Romances of the West of England. (https://archive.org/details/popularromanceso00huntuoft)

Laidly Toad Queen
The Laidly Toad is the villain from “The Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heugh” which is a story from the English Borders. It was originally said to have been collected from a manuscript written by Duncan Fraser around 1270 by Reverend Robert Lambe, who sent it to Bishop Thomas Percy for his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. It wasn’t published there but turned up in various other places: the version I used is from Rhymes of the Northern Bards, edited by John Bell. (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ilkOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false) It now seems unlikely Fraser existed and that the work is a more recent forgery, possibly by Lambe himself. I’ve also mixed in a little from a variant called “Kempe Owen”, which was collected in The Child Ballads.

Malkins
We have a heap of folk stories about speaking, social feline spirits. King o’ the Cats. turns up all over the place, but there’s some argument that Beware the Cat by William Baldwin, which is discussed in the Bestiary, predates and is the source for it. It is certainly the earliest recorded use of “greymalkin” to mean a a grey cat. The version of King o’ the Cats I used is a Cumbrian one collected in More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/More_English_Fairy_Tales/The_King_o%27_the_Cats)

Milcha
Milcha is a minor character in The Tempest: or The Enchanted Island by John Dryden and William D’Avenant but she becomes more substantial over time. As special effects improve, she’s given more to do. By the time of Shadwell “operatic” version, a word which has changed meaning, there was an aerial ballet and she forms a sort of chorus with Ariel. Her wings are linked to her wrists in the drawing to match Ariel’s. His are needed in that position to do a stage trick, making the contents of a table vanish under his wings. It’s not directly linked, but when I was writing this, I listened to Island by Jane Rutter on loop. (https://youtu.be/zLczS-FXVHs)

Unicorn
This chapter’s approach is drawn from the quote in Shakespeare that appears in the text, from Timon of Athens. I tried writing something closer to the folklore in the Physiologus but it read as flat and slut-shaming, so we went another way.

Urban Wisps
Urban wisps are a play on the work of Victor Gruen, an architect from the 1950s.

Waelcyrian
The Waelcyrian were bought to my attention by the Hampshire HistBites podcast, and their interview of Dr Eric Lacey. His chapter, ‘Wælcyrian in the Water Meadows: Lantfred’s Furies’, in Early Medieval Winchester: Communities, Authority and Power in an Urban Space, c.800-c.1200 is the key source for this section.

Whale Eater
I’ve been trying to write up this cryptid, the gorramooloch, for various games for years. This version’s original to this book. One plot hook comes from a 19th century song, The Barber’s News or Shields in an Uproar which doesn’t have a dragon in it, as the reported beast is a drunk sailor who has fallen overboard made increasingly deadly by rumour. The Pentamerone, which has a queen give birth after eating a dragon’s heart, is the source of another.

The Two Sisters – A tale of murder and haunting

Although it is disguised a little with variants, the creature called Eala in the Magonomia Bestiary is the haunted harp found in one of the most popular folksongs of the British Isles. To keep things English, which was the remit of the book, I deliberately used a variant from Berwickshire, but we can look at the others for potential inspirations. Several of the versions take place in London.

The Twa Sisters is recorded in the Child Ballads, which aren’t nursery rhymes: they were collected by a folklorist named Francis Child. As a sign of its antiquity, it’s the tenth ballad recorded, in his five volume work. Textually he can trace it as far back as 1656, to a broadsheet called Wit Restor’d by a comedic author called James Smith, but the story appears so widely that it seems likely he did not pen it, but instead adapted something already known. Child himself finds it in the four nations of Britain, and in Poland, Estonia, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. More recent researc hahs turned up variants as distant as Hungary.

There’s some variation in the stories, and this is why when someone tries to glue parts together, they have continuity errors. My favourite version of this song is “The Bonny Swans” by Loreena McKennitt, but you’ll notice that in her first verse there are three daughters of a farmer, and in the third verse there are two daughters of a king. In some versions the younger daughter offers to give up her lover, in others she refuses. In some she is drowned in the sea, or a river. In some they go to the water to wash, do laundry or look out for their father’s ship. You can twist this story very heavily to to suit your PCs and stay within the folkloristic tradition.

The drowned girl’s body, or part of her body, are almost always used to make an instrument. A viol is popular in some versions, and a harp in others. I used the viol because it’s something players will have less experience with, and because my daughter plays a vague relative of the viol. The part used varies substantially. It can be as little as her hair used for strings, but it eventually becomes a lengthy list. In some versions her trunk, skull, limbs, nose, hair. teeth, veins and fingers are used. One Swedish version has her body wash ashore, grow into a linden, and have a harper make an instrument from that.

Usually the instrument is taken to a wedding feast and breaks things up. The English versions of the song, in Child’s time, were so degraded that instead the harp is taken to the king. In McKennit’s version that’s why the girl seems to change families midstory. In some versions the instrument sounds without human aid, in some it compels a musician to play it, in others it just takes its chance when another tune is begun.

In the Icelandic versions, the song of the instrument is, of itself, fatal.

The first string made response: ‘The bride was my sister once.’

The bride on the bench, she spake: ‘The harp much trouble doth make.’

The second string answered the other: ‘She is parting me and my lover.’

Answered the bride, red as gore: ‘The harp is vexing us sore.’

The canny third string replied: ‘I owe my death to the bride.’

He made all the harp-strings clang; The bride’s heart burst with the pang.

The murderess is often burned. In one variant she is stabbed by the bridegroom. In a third she is banished after her sister is restored to life and pleads on her behalf. The younger sister rarely comes back to life: one variant has the harper smash his instrument after receiving a bribe from the bride. This disenchants the girl, who then has her sister sent into exile. It might serve as a guide to the NPC in Magonomia. Smashing the harp may be all she needs.

Here’s version A. Compare it with McKennitt, link above, to see how far it travels.

There were two sisters, they went playing,
With a hie downe downe a downe-a
To see their father’s ships come sayling in.
With a hy downe downe a downe-a

And when they came unto the sea-brym,
The elder did push the younger in.
O sister, O sister, take me by the gowne,
And drawe me up upon the dry ground.’

O sister, O sister, that may not bee,
Till salt and oatmeale grow both of a tree.’

Somtymes she sanke,
somtymes she swam,
Until she came unto the mill-dam.

The miller runne hastily downe the cliffe,
And up he betook her withouten her life.

What did he doe with her brest-bone?
He made him a violl to play thereupon.

What did he doe with her fingers so small?
He made him peggs to his violl withall.

What did he doe with her nose-ridge?
Unto his violl he made him a bridge.

What did he doe with her veynes so blew?
He made him strings to his violl thereto.

What did he doe with her eyes so bright?
Upon his violl he played at first sight.

What did he doe with her tongue so rough?
Unto the violl it spake enough.

What did he doe with her two shinnes?
Unto the violl they danc’d Moll Syms.

Then bespake the treble string,
‘O yonder is my father the king.’

Then bespake the second string,
‘O yonder sitts my mother the queen.’

And then bespake the strings all three,
‘O yonder is my sister that drowned mee.’

Now pay the miller for his payne,
And let him bee gone in the divel’s name.’