Bardic Studies for Liturgists 1

General Bardic Studies for Liturgists 1

Passed 1/11/16

Reviewed by Rev. Drum

Laura Fuller (Snow)

1. Write two poems of at least 16 lines each appropriate for performance at a High Day ritual. One poem may be in free-verse form, but one must employ some form of meter and/or rhyme. Note in each case for which High Day the poem is intended.

Returning Light

Written for the Winter Solstice

Walks She now through misty field

Where barley and oats grow.

Empty stalks rattle in the breeze

Roots shiver down below.

Harvest has come and passed us by

and now the Hunt rides forth.

Clouds cover up the diming sun

Winds blow hard from the north.

Winter claims the frost-hard land

Horizon stretches grey.

Sunna to Her bed early goes

For night overcame the day.

Gather now we round the fire

Keep Vigil through the dark.

Cast now our eyes to yonder rim

And finally see the spark!

Awake! The sun returns to us

Who waited through the Night.

Celebrations now we give

To the Returning Light!

We Seek You

Written as a praise offering to Skadi for Winter Solstice

Highest peaks covered in rime

Where wild beasts dance

And wind wails

Over sharp rocks

and rocky crevasse.

We seek You!

Where ice and snow

Swirling never melting

The deep blue glacier

Blocking mountain trails

We seek You!

The howling wolves

Your Noisy Companions

For the forest hunt

We seek You!

Hear Our Call

Winter-Queen!

We seek You!

Hail Skadi!

We seek You!

2. Compare and contrast examples from the work of three poets in one cultural tradition from at least two historical eras. (minimum 300 words of the student's original essay material beyond the verses provided, at least one poem per poet)

On Being Brought from Africa to America (Wheatley)

BY PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1773)

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

Cross  (Hughes)

By Langston Hughes (1926)

My old man's a white old man

And my old mother's black.

If ever I cursed my white old man

I take my curses back.

If ever I cursed my black old mother

And wished she were in hell,

I'm sorry for that evil wish

And now I wish her well.

My old man died in a fine big house.

My ma died in a shack.

I wonder where I'm gonna die,

Being neither white nor black?

God Give to Men by Arna Bontemps (Additional Poems of Arna Bontemps)

God give the yellow man

an easy breeze at blossom time.

Grant his eager, slanting eyes to cover

every land and dream

of afterwhile.

Give blue-eyed men their swivel chairs

to whirl in tall buildings.

Allow them many ships at sea,

and on land, soldiers

and policemen.

For black man, God,

no need to bother more

but only fill afresh his meed

of laughter,

his cup of tears.

God suffer little men

the taste of soul's desire.

The three poets I have chosen are all from the American cultural tradition.  While the subjects of the poems are different, all three have a theme about the inner turmoil that we face when confronting some horror in our lives.  However, while all three poems have this in common, they deal with it in very different ways.

The oldest of the poems was written by Phillis Wheatley and published in the 1770s during the height of the slave trade in the US.  She was captured as a child in Africa and brought to the US where she was purchased by a wealthy Boston family to be a domestic slave.  They taught her to read and write and encouraged her in her poetic pursuits taking her on tours.  Her poetry was published during her lifetime, which is rare for any poet, much less an African slave (O'Neale). 

On Being Brought from Africa to America is interesting to read as a pagan, because it makes use of common Christian formulaics such as the phrase ‘Twas mercy brought me’ which most would recognize from the hymn “Amazing Grace” to juxtapose against the experience of being a pagan slave brought to a Christian nation and the Christian rhetoric in finding peace under their Master/God.  Further, it gives social commentary on the issue of race in a voice not often heard at the time as she was a slave when writing this poem.  The idea that black was evil but could be ‘refined’ from their pagan ways to the ‘angelic train’ while still bearing the ‘mark of cain’ because of their color is a series of contradictions that still confound racists today as they struggle to make sense of religious beliefs and cultural norms that are counter to each other.

Cross, by Langston Hughs was published in the 1920s, after slavery had officially been abolished but before the civil rights movement.  Hughs, who is credited as being part of the Harlem Renaissance, was of mixed racial heritage.  From the very title of the Poem, Cross, the many issues and burdens he faced because of that mixed heritage are hinted at.  From the idea of the cross as a burden to bear to the racial slur ‘crossbreed’ the title shows life as difficult.  Pulled in two ways with family in two worlds, the speaker is angry at the unfair burdens he’s had to carry.  The poem’s meter varies, but it is mostly iambic (Cummings).  The first part of the poem uses declarative statements to establish the situation, then the rest of the poem softens into questions, showing the speakers insecurity with his future because of the conflicts of his past.

Arna Bontemps was born in Louisiana, although raised in California.  He married before the Great Depression and had a large family which led him to work in areas other than poetry.  Like Hughs, he was part of the Harlem Renaissance (Poetry Foundation).  His poem ‘God Give to Men’ also looks at the relationship between religion and oppression.  The first two stanzas, directed presumably at Asians and Caucasians, speaks of an easy life of pleasures.  For the ‘yellow man’ that is the simple pleasure of the spring breeze and of dreams.  While this could, potentially, be a veiled reference to the opium trade, it is more likely an orientalist view of the other as having an exotic, if simple, life.  The second stanza, with its focus on the pleasures of the blue-eyed (presumably white) man looks at the complex pleasures that come with a place of power in the various social structures.  These pleasures speak to the joy of having power over, specifically power over others.  Whether it’s the manager in his swivel chair, the ability to send a naval force, or the power of controlling and being like the police, it is part of the racial structure that even now is the legacy of slavery in the US.  The last stanza, looking at the pleasures of the black man, though, instead speaks of their absence.  The last two lines state that black men have only had a taste of pleasure, as if a banquet had been set before a starving man but he wasn’t allowed to eat, given only a ‘cup of tears’.

Though only the first of the poets was herself a slave, all three of them suffered under the racist structures of the US.  All three of the poems speak to the religious rhetoric of Christianity that should free them from oppression and yet their oppression is in some way rooted in religion itself.

3. Compare and contrast examples from the work of two poets of the same historical era from two different cultural traditions. (minimum 300 words of the student's original essay material beyond the verses provided at least two poems per poet)

The Fallen Subaltern  (Asquith, The Fallen Subaltern) by Herbert Asquith (British)

The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten;

We bear our fallen friend without a sound;

Below the waiting legions lie and listen

To us, who march upon their burial-ground.

Wound in the flag of England, here we lay him;

The guns will flash and thunder o’er the grave;

What other winding sheet should now array him,

What other music should salute the brave?

As goes the Sun-god in his chariot glorious,

When all his golden banners are unfurled,

So goes the soldier, fallen but victorious,

And leaves behind a twilight in the world.

And those who come this way, in days hereafter,

Will know that here a boy for England fell,

Who looked at danger with the eyes of laughter,

And on the charge his days were ended well.

One last salute; the bayonets clash and glisten;

With arms reversed we go without a sound:

One more has joined the men who lie and listen

To us, who march upon their burial-ground.

The Volunteer (Asquith, The Volunteer) by Herbert Asquith

Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent

Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,

Thinking that so his days would drift away

With no lance broken in life’s tournament:

Yet ever ’twixt the books and his bright eyes

The gleaming eagles of the legions came,

And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,

Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.

And now those waiting dreams are satisfied;

From twilight to the halls of dawn he went;

His lance is broken; but he lies content

With that high hour, in which he lived and died.

And falling thus he wants no recompense,

Who found his battle in the last resort;

Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,

Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.

The Pilgrims (McCrae, The Pilgrims)

BY JOHN MCCRAE

An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,

    Where every beam that broke the leaden sky

Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;

    Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;

And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:

        And this was Life.

Wherein we did another's burden seek,

    The tired feet we helped upon the road,

The hand we gave the weary and the weak,

    The miles we lightened one another's load,

When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:

        This too was Life.

Till, at the upland, as we turned to go

    Amid fair meadows, dusky in the night,

The mists fell back upon the road below;

    Broke on our tired eyes the western light;

The very graves were for a moment bright:

        And this was Death.

In Flanders Fields (McCrae, In Flanders Fields)

BY JOHN MCCRAE

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

The two poets I have chosen for this analysis are John McCrae and Herbert Asquith.  Both men were well-educated members of their societies who still went to serve their countries during World War One.  John McCrae was a Canadian doctor educated at McGill University who served on the Western Front (John McCrae) and Herbert Asquith was the second son of the British Prime Minister who married into the aristocracy but still served with the Royal Artillery Service (Herbert Asquith).

The two McCrae poems I chose are The Pilgrims and In Flanders Fields.  The Pilgrims uses a rhyme scheme that is a variation on a cinquin of ababbC where C is a common theme through the poem.  In The Pilgrims, the voice we hear is that of someone who has seen death creeping ever closer through the years as they’ve carried their burden and grown tired, but have shared the load and found strength in the sharing.  The imagery in this poem is very much that of the journey, the pilgrimage to pay ones respects to some person, place, or thing where the trials one goes through on the road are what shape you going forward.  The trials of the soldiers’ travels in World War One often shaped them with what we now call PTSD.  Whether the speaker is referring to the relief of setting down the burden of life or to the sudden death by artillery on the battlefield is unclear, but either way, this poem gives a bleak sense of the inevitability of that end for those who fought.

In Flanders Fields follows the pattern of the English rondeau, using a rhyme scheme of aabba aabR aabbaR.  The single line of “In Flanders Fields” then stands out strongly against the regular rhyme pattern, jarring you from the imagery in a way that makes it less about the general visuals of battle and placing it firmly in a lived, concrete location.  As someone who has often heard the rhetoric about patriotism and yet seen and worked with those returning from war, this break in context shows that what is poetry to some is reality to others.  I chose The Volunteer and The Fallen Subaltern by Herbert Asquith.  The Volunteer follows a complicated rhyme scheme of abbacdcd which appears to be a combination of an enclosed rhyme (abba) followed by an alternate rhyme (cdcd) in each stanza.  The Fallen Subaltern is the much simpler alternate rhyme format where each stanza’s first and third lines rhyme and their second and fourth lines rhyme. 

The Volunteer is written as a tribute to fallen soldiers, but it speaks to more than that.  When I read this poem, I see in it the way that the propaganda and the rhetoric of war shapes the hopes of young soldiers. How we tell stories of war, especially historical war, as if it was exciting.  The imagery of the first stanza speaks to glorious (and fictional) war that can only be believed by someone who has to this point lived in tales of heroes.  We see this in the phrase ‘bright eyes’ where the bright eyes refer to the clerk’s youth and gullibility. The second stanza then provides the contrast with after the battle, how the young man has now gone to join the ancestors. 

The Fallen Subaltern is also a tribute to Asquith’s comrades who didn’t come home from the war.  But where the other poems spoke in bleak terms about the wars and the slain, this poem speaks of the glory they won for themselves.  Phrases like ‘who looked at danger with the eyes of laughter, and on the charge his days were ended well’ paint a very different picture of the eyes of the soldier than the ‘bright eyes’ of The Volunteer.  One possible interpretation is that Asquith speaks of battle madness in The Fallen Subaltern, and perhaps some of the difference then should be attributed to the fact that every generation does have those called to war, the sadness is really for those who are not meant to be warriors who still lay down their lives.

4. Compare and contrast two mythological or folkloric tales from two Indo-European cultures. Include a discussion of the use of narrative point-of-view, the element of time, and any relevant issues of religious (or other) bias influencing the narrative. (minimum 600 words)

The Gods of both the Norse and Greek pantheons are gifted magical items in their tales, and there are some striking similarities between the items themselves (although there are also differences).  For this question, I am choosing to compare the section of The Library by Apollodorus in which Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon are given lightning bolts, a magical helmet, and a trident respectively with the story told in Skaldskaparmal of the treasures the dwarves made for the gods.

        In The Library, Apollodorus tells the story of creation starting with the wedding of the Sky and the Earth.  He speaks of their firstborn the hundred-handed, then he tells of the cyclopes who were named Arges (“Bright”), Steropes (“Lightning”), and Brontes (“Thunderer”).  Uranus bound the children in Tartarus, and proceeded to father the Titans on Gaia.  Eventually the Titans revolted and bound Uranus in Tartarus, freeing their siblings and giving Cronus the throne.  He eventually returned his siblings to Tartarus.  Because of a prophecy that he would also be overthrown by a child, he swallows his children when they are born, until Rhea tricks him giving him a rock instead of Zeus.  Eventually Zeus grows up, frees his siblings with help (different sources offer different helpers).  There is war once more between father and children, and in order to win, Zeus frees his uncles (Apollodorus 1.1.1-1.2.1) which brings us to the point of the story we are actually interested in for it is at this point that the three Cyclopes give Zeus his Thunderbolts, Poseidon his Trident, and Hades his Helmet (Apollodorus 1.2.1). 

This myth, at least in this telling, is told in a third person narration style.  This allows the story to move through a number of details quickly without getting bogged down in any interpretation of them.  The downside to this is that we do not get any of the character’s points of view of the proceedings.  We don’t get any of their motivations, emotions, or reasons, just a list of what happened.  The myth does, however, offer a consistent timeline unlike most myths where it is difficult to determine where they fall in the overarching mythical chronology of their stories.  While it is possible that the stories have been edited based on later scribes’ religious beliefs or disdain for some aspect of the story, the translation I had (Frazer’s translation on Theoi) did not make any such ‘tampering’ apparent.

A distinctly different, though similar, myth exists among the Norse.  Within Snorri’s Prose Edda there is the book Skaldskaparmal.  The book, though written to teach Snorri’s contemporaries about the poetic dictions of the past, is written from the perspective of Braggi, the Aesir’s Skald, as he tells stories to Aegir, the Norse sea-god.  The stories all begin with a question about a kenning, and then Braggi tells the story that explains the kenning.  The fifth such story begins with the question of “why is gold called Sif’s hair?” (Sturluson 92) and tells the story of how Loki cut off Sif’s hair, was threatened by Thor, and then turned to the Sons of Ivaldi, who were dwarves known for their smith-work, to have them make some new hair for Sif.  They made Sif’s new hair out of gold, a boat for Frey, and Odin’s spear.  Then Loki made a bet with one of the dwarves that his brother could not make three better treasures.  The brother, Eitri, made a boar with golden bristles (Gullinbursti), Draupnir the golden arm-ring that dropped more rings so that the owner would be wealthy, and Thor’s hammer.  Brokk (the first dwarf) and Loki went to Asgard and asked the gods to decide the outcome of the wager.  The gods decided in favor of Eitri, which meant Loki’s head was forfeit.  However they couldn’t come up with a way to cut off his head without harming his neck, which was not part of the wager, so Loki escaped his punishment, although the dwarves sewed his lips shut instead (Sturluson 92-94).

Because of the way the story is told, as if Braggi is performing for an audience, there again is no sense of the reasons or emotions of the actors that drove the story.  We don’t get any looks in their head to see why Loki cut Sif’s hair in the first place, much less made his bet with the dwarves.  This narrative style is common in the Icelandic lore as they (like the Greek myth told by Apollodotus above) are in a poetic form rather than being told from a point of view story as modern audiences are more accustomed.

Also, because of the way Snorri structured the Prose Edda, as a teaching tool as much as a reliquary of stories, there is no real sense of time in the stories.  We know, for example, that the cutting of Sif’s hair preceded getting Mjolnir from the dwarves, but Odin’s Spear should have been with him in the battle between Aesir and Vanir since he threw it over the battlefield.  And yet at the same time, Frey, the son of one of the hostages from that conflict, is one of the recipients of the gifts!  The stories of the Norse myths are all but impossible to put on any sort of timeline.

Lastly, we know throughout the Prose Edda that while Snorri took enjoyment in the stories of his people’s past, he was himself a Christian.  His major interest was in preserving the literature and especially the literary style.  Because of this, many of the stories are heavily edited to make them fit within a Christian cosmology.  While that is probably not the case with this particular story, others show a heavy Christian influence, even going so far as to link them to the creation stories in the bible (Sturluson xiv). 

Both of these myths tell the stories of how the gods got their most powerful weapons.  In both cases, the gifts come in groups of three and there is some overlap in what the gifts themselves are.  Thunderbolts correspond to Mjolnir, Hades’ helmet perhaps has something in common with Sif’s hair, and Poseidon’s trident could possibly be linked to Frey’s boat as both have some relationship to the waves and calm seas.  While it isn’t a direct correlation by any means, there are perhaps some hints of a deeper Proto-Myth there, however it is hard to determine just what that Proto-Myth might hold.

If I were to speculate about the what the proto-myth would hold, the basic storyline would include some common elements.  There would be two different tribes of gods and they were at war with each other, struggling over who would be the most powerful and rule the land.  While the war was treated as a power struggle between two tribes, the actual triggering cause would be either the control of a goddess or something that she did.  For example, there is some speculation that Loki cut Sif’s hair in the myth because that was the punishment for adulteresses.  This would be a form of social control over the goddess.  An example of a goddess doing something that stirs war would be Heid moving among the people and practicing witchcraft.  Rhea’s attempts to thwart her husband’s plans in maintaining his rule could be another example.  Regardless, a goddess does something that challenges the social order leading to one tribe of gods wanting to punish her and one wanting to protect her.  Because of this, war breaks out, but the tribes of gods are evenly matched.  In order to win, the new tribe of gods that is challenging the rule of the older tribe of gods turns to another race of beings that live beneath the earth and are intimately connected to primal creative forces.  This other race is ugly and brutish, but they create items of incredible power and beauty.  The items they create for the new gods turn the tide of the war, allowing them to establish themselves the new rulers of the cosmos.         

Works Cited

Additional Poems of Arna Bontemps. n.d. 29 December 2015. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bontemps/additionalpoems.htm>.

Apollodorus. The Library Book 1. n.d. website. 30 December 2015. <http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus1.html>.

Asquith, Herbert. The Fallen Subaltern. n.d. website. 29 December 2015. <http://www.bartleby.com/266/135.html>.

—. The Volunteer. n.d. website. 29 December 2015. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-volunteer/>.

Cummings, Michael. Cross. 2008. website. 29 December 2015. <http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides4/cross.html>.

Herbert Asquith. n.d. website. 30 December 2015. <http://www.poemhunter.com/herbert-asquith/>.

Hughes, Langston. Cross. n.d. website. 29 December 2015. <http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/langston-hughes/cross/>.

John McCrae. n.d. website. 30 December 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-mccrae>.

McCrae, John. In Flanders Fields. n.d. website. 29 December 2015. <https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/flanders-fields>.

—. The Pilgrims. n.d. website. 29 December 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173956>.

O'Neale, Sondra A. Phillis Wheatley. n.d. website. 29 December 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/phillis-wheatley>.

Poetry Foundation. Arna Bontemps. n.d. website. 29 December 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/arna-bontemps>.

Sturluson, Snorri. The Prose Edda. Trans. Jesse Byock. London: Penguin, 2003. print.

Wheatley, Phillis. On Being Brought From Africa to America. n.d. 29 December 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174733>.