but aye her whistle would fetch him back

[incandescens]

And finally Archonia gets new French manga in. And I promptly order, then sit and wait for it to arrive. Ahhhhh.

(These little things that please us . . .)

Work got themselves organised today after receiving my lately-received, lately-sent P45, and have admitted that my record entitles me to an extra 3 days of annual leave per year. Which makes an extra 2 for what's left of the year. Good. Every little helps.

---

The Allansford Pursuit

Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.

O, I shall go into a hare
With sorrow and sighing and mickle care,
And I shall go in the Devil's name
Aye, till I be fetched hame.
-- Hare, take heed of a bitch greyhound
Will harry thee all these fells around,
For here come I in Our Lady's name
All but for to fetch thee hame.

Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.

Yet I shall go into a trout
With sorrow and sighing and mickle doubt,
And show thee many a crooked game
Ere that I be fetched hame,
-- Trout, take heed of an otter lank
Will harry thee close from bank to bank,
For here come I in Our Lady's name
All but for to fetch thee hame.

Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.

Yet I shall go into a bee
With mickle horror and dread of thee
And flit to hive in the Devil's name
Ere that I be fetched hame.
-- Bee, take heed of a swallow hen
Will harry thee close, both butt and ben,
For here come I in Our Lady's name
All but for to fetch thee hame.

Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.

Yet I shall go into a mouse
And haste me unto the miller's house,
There in his corn to have good game
Ere that I be fetched hame.
-- Mouse, take heed of a white tib-cat
That never was baulked of mouse or rat,
For I'll crack thy bones in Our Lady's name:
Thus shalt thou be fetched hame.

Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.

-- Robert Graves

A restoration of the fragmentary seventeenth-century text, sung by north-country witches at their sabbats

Comments

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

How very, very Robert Graves.

Thank you!

[incandescens]

A pleasure.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Either I'm misreading badly or this has peculiar echoes of The Hound of Heaven.

[incandescens]

The Francis Thompson poem? "But with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace . . ." (and now I'm having flashbacks to Gervase Fen wasting his breath quoting that out loud during a chase through Oxford in The Moving Toyshop) . . . mm, there are echoes.

But then again, I've seen pair-chase poems/songs like this before. This one's a famous example, the Two Magicians. (http://www.contemplator.com/child/2magics.html) If anyone's imitating or borrowing, I think Francis Thompson definitely came second in the line rather than first.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

It still sounds to me like someone hell-bent, if you'll pardon the expression, on being damned, who is being reassured (rather a la The Runaway Bunny ^_^) that the grace of the mother of God will still save him. Which is a tad odd coming from a witch, you know.

[incandescens]

Unless you consider (and "For I'll crack thy bones in Our Lady's name / Thus shalt thou be fetched hame" doesn't sound awfully saving) that perhaps when they say Our Lady, they're referring to someone other than the usual candidate. I have a vague recollection that Robert Graves took some interest in mother-goddess worship, as per The White Goddess, which might be relevant here. (Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, to quote from a different source.)

[shiny-monkey.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to the post itself, but I adore your icon (I adore Robin, what can I say? She's uber-cool).

[incandescens]

She is indeed uber-cool. (I did some searching on iconage after someone compared me with her . . .)