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Showing posts from December, 2018

Saki wolves

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On Friday last week some friends came over for an old fashioned midwinter's evening of mulled cider, nibbles, log fire, candlelight, and reading ghost stories. Of the couple I read, one was a short story by Saki - recorded here because I like it and it saves me from having to think of anything original (besides, it's about wolves).

Winter poems

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Here are three poems for the midwinter season.One is my own and the other two were written by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams and Cathal O'Searcaigh. Ignore the wincing, I've done my back in somehow and it's driving me to distraction.

Frost poem

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I posted a written version of the Grandfather Frost poem last December, but hadn't performed it anywhere till Pooka's Pageant a few weeks ago in Ipswich. This poem is in a metre of my own devising and acts as a whimsical response to the familiar Night Before Christmas-style poems that are popular at this time of year. It combines elements from Russian and Slavic paganism (where Ded Moroz, Grandfather Frost, is a prominent archaic figure who brings in the winter snows) with a nod or two to William Joyce's children's fiction. I seldom write poems or tell stories for children (all the adverts on TV keep telling me to keep away from children, so I do), but this is one of the rare occasions when I've produced something vaguely suitable.