Giles Watson's poetry and prose
Green Woodpecker
Woodpecker
Before Zeus ousted the cult of the Awl Bird,
The oak boles rattled, probed by the tongue of the Yaffle.
The ground was made green by the Bee Bird,
The Woodwale bringing the thrumming of rain.
Moths were gleaned from the tree-bark,
Anthills were dismantled by drumming bills,
The ants were licked into their minor oblivion,
And the Druids’ great goddess grew round.
In days when gods were refused by Popinjays,
The Wood Knacker hacked with her red head,
Gouging, in her garment of green,
And the Hew Hole held her own.
The oracle of the Icwell had her way
When men waited for word of rain.
When grain and growth were the Green Ile’s own,
Birds, and not gods, ruled the world.
Source material: There is a vast folklore associated with the Green Woodpecker, and Awl Bird, Yaffle, Bee Bird, Woodwale, Popinjay, Wood Knacker, Hew Hole, Icwell and Green Ile are only some of the bird’s multitudinous names. Edward Armstrong suggests that a woodpecker cult arose during Neolithic times, when early attempts at farming increased the rain-dependence of human societies. The thunder-like drumming of the greater-spotted woodpecker has always been associated with rain, and there is some evidence that a woodpecker oracle, whose role was to divine the weather, existed in the Apennines. That woodpecker worship was vilified by the worshippers of Zeus is affirmed by Euripides in Aristophanes’ Birds: “Zeus won’t in a hurry the sceptre restore to the woodpecker tapping the oak,/ In times prehistoric ‘tis easily proved, by evidence weighty and ample, / That Birds and not Gods were the rulers of men, and the lords of the world.” Many more recent folk traditions portray the woodpecker as being disobedient to a male god, often refusing to dig a hole for him on the grounds that the earth would discolour her striking plumage. See Francesca Greenoak, British Birds: Their Folklore, Names and Literature, pp. 134-138. Armstrong’s theory harmonises rather well with the thesis of Robert Graves’s The White Goddess.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2002. Reading recorded 20th April, 2010.
Green Woodpecker
Woodpecker
Before Zeus ousted the cult of the Awl Bird,
The oak boles rattled, probed by the tongue of the Yaffle.
The ground was made green by the Bee Bird,
The Woodwale bringing the thrumming of rain.
Moths were gleaned from the tree-bark,
Anthills were dismantled by drumming bills,
The ants were licked into their minor oblivion,
And the Druids’ great goddess grew round.
In days when gods were refused by Popinjays,
The Wood Knacker hacked with her red head,
Gouging, in her garment of green,
And the Hew Hole held her own.
The oracle of the Icwell had her way
When men waited for word of rain.
When grain and growth were the Green Ile’s own,
Birds, and not gods, ruled the world.
Source material: There is a vast folklore associated with the Green Woodpecker, and Awl Bird, Yaffle, Bee Bird, Woodwale, Popinjay, Wood Knacker, Hew Hole, Icwell and Green Ile are only some of the bird’s multitudinous names. Edward Armstrong suggests that a woodpecker cult arose during Neolithic times, when early attempts at farming increased the rain-dependence of human societies. The thunder-like drumming of the greater-spotted woodpecker has always been associated with rain, and there is some evidence that a woodpecker oracle, whose role was to divine the weather, existed in the Apennines. That woodpecker worship was vilified by the worshippers of Zeus is affirmed by Euripides in Aristophanes’ Birds: “Zeus won’t in a hurry the sceptre restore to the woodpecker tapping the oak,/ In times prehistoric ‘tis easily proved, by evidence weighty and ample, / That Birds and not Gods were the rulers of men, and the lords of the world.” Many more recent folk traditions portray the woodpecker as being disobedient to a male god, often refusing to dig a hole for him on the grounds that the earth would discolour her striking plumage. See Francesca Greenoak, British Birds: Their Folklore, Names and Literature, pp. 134-138. Armstrong’s theory harmonises rather well with the thesis of Robert Graves’s The White Goddess.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2002. Reading recorded 20th April, 2010.