Round the Herne

I was going to record a dragon story yesterday (St George's Day) but struggles with the modern monster of technology consumed too much time. So, belatedly, here is a Hindu tale about a giant serpent demon which could be considered a dragon of sorts. The monstrous Vritra swallows up the rivers and causes terrible droughts and much death, till the god Indra comes along and sorts him out. In doing so he gains the title of Vritrahan, the dragon slayer. I am not sure who the artist is with the picture of Indra and Vritra inset. Should anyone be wondering, yes I do look that fat and unkempt - consider it the impact of quarantine! I was told yesterday that I look old and haggard, so there's no point denying it anymore! Once it is lifted I will be joining the long queues at the barbers and eating dust with Fat Fighters.

The Royal Shakespeare Company have started a Share Your Shakespeare project to encourage people during the lock-down to read a speech from a poem, act out a speech from one of the plays etc. So this is my brief contribution to that - three of the Bard's sonnets. Sonnet 29 I have chosen because I first heard it read aloud several decades ago by the American actor Ron Perlman, who has a fantastically gravelly voice well suited to poetry. I can fully sympathise with the poet's words, having had many occasions in life when I have wished I were much more like some very impressive person or another rather than just being a ginger hobbit (mind you, Old Will was a ginger too - look at that beard!). Not quite so many experiences of the Thy Sweet Love, but that's what happens when you're a hobbit. Sonnet 81 is here because, in these dark times, there will be many people looking at family, friends, lovers etc. and wondering if all too soon one will be attending the funeral of...

Passing the time with a reading of Saki's short story "The She-Wolf" in which a windbag gets hoist on his own petard by one of Saki's recurrent characters, the man-about-town Clovis Sangrail (a surname that will amuse Arthurian enthusiasts).

Seeing as it is Easter and I'm going stir crazy the same as everyone at present, here is the tale of St Melangell - an Irishwoman who sought refuge in Wales where she became an abbess and, having shuffled off her mortal coil in old age (thankfully no gruesome martyr's tale here) became the patron saint of the hares who formed a significant part of her congregation. I did check what else she might be a patron of, but the Catholic website was not giving anything away! I have not been able to identify the artist of the icon here, though it was listed by the website as Flemish art. If anyone fancies visiting her shrine it is in Pennant Melangell in Powys and her holy day is May 27th. She may be a memory of an older figure, or possibly she is a genuine mortal who attained canonisation.

With lock-down still in place the meeting of the Ipswich Pagan Council cannot take place this evening (at least not in the flesh). So below is a recorded moot talk on the mythology of the Greek deity Pan. We are looking at setting up a Zoom chat tonight, but still working on the technical details,

Seeing as lots of people are reporting on social media how they are feeling as if they are imprisoned in their own homes, I thought I would record Oscar Wilde's monumentally long poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, for an insight into what it is really like to be banged up with no escape in sight (unlike just hanging around at home longer than most of us would wish) - I promise to leave Mr Wilde in peace for a while now, having recorded three of his works in as many days. This poem is a bleak one, which Wilde dedicated to a soldier who had been sentenced to hang for murder during the period in which the poet was sentenced for what will probably seem to most a very little thing - bedding Lord Alfred Douglas and rather too many rent boys. The poem addresses the awfulness of Victorian prison life and the horror of capital punishment. After all this recording, I think I need to give my throat a rest for a day or two!

Oscar Wilde was a man of many words, as can be seen from the length of some of his poems. The Garden of Eros is a tad lengthy, but beautiful - an invocation of both the wonders of nature (gardeners should enjoy it) but also the power of myth and legend to transport readers into a whole other realm away from the prosaic and pragmatic. Eros is the god not only of sexual and sensual desire but, in the Platonic philosophy the power of attraction in general - the force that holds atoms together and draws intellects to the the topics that uplift and inspire them. Is Wilde singing the praises of the literary Muse that inspires him, or is he thinking of some pretty young man (hopefully not the petulant Bosie) with whom he has shared his love of Greek Myth, Arthurian romances, and the all the other sagas? I'm not sure it wholly matters to whom the poem is addressed. Ultimately I see it as a love poem to the very power of storytelling itself. The photo, incidentally, is of the gardens at...

Some more poetry to bombard people with - slight variation here, linking poems to pictures instead of having my face on the screen. This is about as technological as I get - no idea how to do the cinematic-style imagery I've seen on professional podcasts. I don't have many subscribers, but I'm interested as to which style of poetry (with or without imagery) people prefer. Today's poems are as follows: The White Hind also by Aonghas MacNeacail, from his collection The Avoiding and Other Poems, published 1986 by MacDonald Publishers Endymion by Oscar Wilde, from the Collected Poems of Oscar Wilde, published 1994 by Wordsworth Poetry Library Bluebells for Love by Patrick Kavanagh, from the anthology The Long Embrace, published 1987 by The Blackstaff Press A Lady of Quality by Thomas Kinsella, also from The Long Embrace

To help alleviate the boredom that many are experiencing during lock-down I shall be uploading a few poems that I like over the next week or so. If you like the poems enough to want to track down the books, whether to buy now (by mail order, obviously) or to get from the few remaining libraries when they reopen, the titles are below: Seed-saver by Nicholas McLachlan (included in an anthology called Cum - New Writing from Kerrypublished 1996 by Kerry County Council [that's a Gaelic word, not a typo]) The Calling of Taliessin by Charles Williams, from his collection - The Region of the Summer Stars, published 1950 by Oxford University The Calling of Arthur & Taliessin's Return to Logres also by Charles Williams, from his collection The Arthurian Poems of Charles Williams, reprinted 1982 by Brewer Cities of Mind by Chase Twitchell, from his collection Dog Language, published 2006 by Bloodaxe Books Before the Owl Takes Flight by Robin Herne, from my collection Bard...

Some snippets from the long life of the Greek goddess Iris and her twin sister Arke, cobbled together into one tale - the choice of which is partly inspired by all the children's drawings of rainbows currently being displayed in windows all over the country to express thanks to NHS staff and other key workers for keeping Britain running during the lock-down period. This is m small contribution to help alleviate the boredom that many are feeling (at least, I hope it distracts from rather than adds to the tedium!) Members of the Gippeswyk Storytelling club cannot meet this month, for obvious reasons, so this is part of a virtual gathering for them as well. I'll add some other stories and poems over the weekend, ready for what would have been our regular meeting date on Monday. The rainbow symbolises hope (amongst other things) and, I'm hoping that my favourite Greek cafe in Bury St Edmunds will survive the economic turmoil and reopen in due course. I shall be eating my...