Winter Poem for Yule Ball

 The Bardic Challenge for Yule Ball 2021 was to produce a piece of work on the theme of "Winter".  I looked for inspiration to the traditional symbols for each month, as used in calendars from Books of Hours and some wall paintings, and used those for the three winter months, namely:

December: Killing the Pig

January: Feasting indoors

February: Sitting by the fire.

When I came to perform my poem, the sheets of paper on which it was written had disappeared!  I was invited instead to record a performance of it, which is this:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A long-awaited Laurel Scroll

Image
 This scroll was commissioned at the beginning of 2020.  You can guess the rest.  By the time I had completed it, it was apparent it wasn't going to be presented any time soon, so I finished it without adding the date, which I was finally able to add a month ago, and the scroll was presented yesterday.  So far my record for the longest delay between my doing a scroll and it being presented, but I have another one still awaiting presentation which will beat that record!
Read more

Illuminated Poem: Ranulf, Earl of Chester

Image
  Langland's "Piers Ploughman" mentions in passing that Robin Hood and Ranulf, Earl of Chester were both popular characters in the everyday tales of late 14th Century England.  Robin Hood, of course, has survived,  Ranulf has not.  So I thought it was time to revive him.  Unfortunately, by Langland's time, three Earls of Chester had been called Ranulf/Randolph.  I just picked the one whom I thought would give me the best story (Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester, 1099–1153). As the plan for these illuminated poems, when finished, is to present them as "The Canterbury Out-takes" (Poems by Chaucer that never made the final cut!) they had to be illustrated in a style between the writing of the Canterbury Tales and the "Final Cut"... Caxton's printed edition.  The borders are inspired by "The Carpentin Hours" and the first illustration by a manuscript of Josephus' "Histories of the Jews" commissioned by Edward IV, so from
Read more