Violet Hughes here afore Us
All accolades, We would hear
That make then a worthy Peer
She and the Blue Tyger Cat
Walk together, but apart
Their mind is set on kingdom
Hers covers clever outcome
She’s about the silent search
purposely pours through research
Sparky does not envy her
Her work’s cause for them to purr
When on task, lone together
The East faces fair weather
She brings to bear and then some,
Boundless boon to kingdom
At times the Blue Tyger nets
The birds, like belov’d assets
Violet, as her net’s thrown
Finds Crux of hard meaning now known
The Blue Tyger bids their eye
Spanning from meadow to sky
She eases her eye to pledge
On the keenness of knowledge
Blue tyger is Joyful swift
Gazing at folk as a gift
Her joy sparkles like a gem
When wending through a problem
When We're working together
We'll not worry the other
Wielding weapons or the pen
Joyus in our clever ken
We, on these Tyger Thrones see
That understanding clearly
That which is difficult
Is expertise we exalt
Order of the Pelican
Members of its august span
Brought before Violet Hughes now
She’s to receive its renown
Ryouko'jin Demon King
of the three heavens brings
Rani Indrakshi to see
This Eastern Peer, by Our decree
Done by these letters patent
Purpure, a punner Argent
With these symbols We adorn
On September 3rd, at Barleycorn
These praises We'll not disavow
AS Fifty Seven now
In Crown Province of Ostgardr
With Our sincerest regard
Wordcount 260
Calligraphy and Illumination by Camille des Jardins
Photo by Camille des Jardins
Inspired by the anonymous 11thc Irish poem “Pangur Bán.”
Key Old Irish
Syllable count 7
AABB Rhyme scheme
Alliteration
Heraldic Language
*perspective switch lead
We’ve pulled from the populous
Violet Hughes here afore Us
All accolades, We would hear
That make them a worthy Peer
*She and the Blue Tyger Cat
Walk together, but apart
Their mind is set on kingdom
Hers covers clever outcome
She’s about the silent search
purposely pours through research
Sparky does not envy her
Her work’s cause for them to purr
When on task, lone together
The East faces fair weather
She brings to bear and then some,
Boundless boon to kingdom
At times the Blue Tyger nets
The birds, like belov’d assets
Violet, as her net’s thrown
Finds Crux of hard meaning now known
The Blue Tyger bids their eye
Spanning from meadow to sky
She eases her eye to pledge
On the keenness of knowledge
Blue tyger is Joyful swift
Gazing at folk as a gift
Her joy sparkles like a gem
When wending through a problem
*When We're working together
We'll not worry the other
Wielding weapons or the pen
Joyus in our clever ken
We, on these Tyger Thrones see
That understanding clearly
That which is difficult
Is expertise we exalt
Order of the Pelican
Members of its august span
Brought before Violet Hughes now
She’s to receive its renown
Ryouko'jin Demon King
of the three heavens brings
Rani Indrakshi to see
This Eastern Peer, by Our decree
Done by these letters patent
Purpure, a punner Argent
With these symbols We adorn
On September 3rd, at Barleycorn
These praises We'll not disavow
AS Fifty Seven now
In Crown Province of Ostgardr
With Our sincerest regard
You must BLOG where I can not,
'Pangur Bán' 'Pangur Bán',
There is nothing in this life but mist,
And we will only be alive,
for a short time.
Níl sa saol seo ach ceo,
Is ní bheimid beo,
ach seal beag gearr.
-The Secret of Kells
Inspiration - how I got to Pangur Bán
She does not have a set time period, as per the wiki, with persona listed as, “generic SCAdian.”
There was a caveat in her ICOP section where she requested that all the speakers at her elevation do so in Limerick. I had discovered writing an Award of Arms in 2018 that while the Limerick verse we are all familiar with was popular from the 18th century on, there were similar forms in Old Irish poem styles going back to the 12th century.
Pangur Bán is an Old Irish poem, written in about the 9th century by a monk about his white cat, named Pangur. It is written in a style I found evocative of the debate poems found in the 12th & 13th centuries, particularly the Owl and the NIghtingale and earlier, 397 to 400, Augustine’s Confessions, which I had researched for a previous Silver Brooch.
Pangur Bán is, essentially, this long forgotten Monk watching his white cat hunt mice. The poem is written with the author comparing himself to his cat, as they both enjoy their roles in life.
My first step was to research the poem itself. I found a YouTube video in which Dr. Mark Harman read a couple of verses of the poem in Gaelic and then in English. Hearing it spoken in the original language really did help me get into a groove for writing it.
The poem is preserved in the Reichenau Primer and now kept in St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal.
Research on the poem , rhyme & meter
Then I started to look for translations of the poem. I found many. Including one version by W.H. Auden, a modern poet whose works I admire. These short translations were wonderful and certainly gave me a feel for what the poem was, but I wanted to find full translations.
I found them in the University of Cambridge, as well as one by James Marchand.
Then I looked for the verse form the original had been written in.
One source said “the meter is Deibhidhe (pronounced “ jayvee”), with seven syllables per line, with an unstressed final syllable in the off-verse rhyming with the on-verse. Alliteration is common. This may be the ancestor of scaldic meters.”
Deibhidhe is:
written in any number of quatrains
each line with 7 syllables
rhymed, AABB
with alliteration between two words in each line
- all end-words should consonate (Sound in sympathy)
