Giles Watson's poetry and prose
Blacksmiths
Blacksmiths
Smut-smirched smiths, smothered with smoke
Drive me to death with distraction and din.
No one ever heard such noise in the night:
Clamouring of knaves and clattering knocks,
The hog-nosed hobgoblins hollering, “Ho! Coal!”
And blowing their bellows fit to burst brains.
“Huff! Puff!” howls one, “Haff! Paff!” another,
Gnashing and gnawing and groaning together,
Hitting out hotly with mad hammers,
Roundly wrapped in rawhide aprons,
Their shanks hard-clad against sparks.
They heft heavy hammers – hard to handle –
And bang on anvils with angry smacks:
“Luss! Buss! Lass! Dass!”: chorus of crashing!
Devils are doomed by so dreadful a din!
He lengthens by belting, he smelts and he snips,
He twists and he twines, striking three times:
“Tik! Tak! Hic! Hac! Tiket! Taket! Tik! Tak!
Luss! Buss! Luss! Dass!” Such lives they lead:
Mad, blackened farriers! Be merciful, Christ!
They plunge iron in water; ravage the night.
Fourteenth century alliterative poem, translated by Giles Watson. The text is printed in Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman, Middle English Lyrics, 1974, p. 130, and a slightly shortened version has recently been recorded by the Mediaeval Baebes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0H98YU3IWs
The picture shows detail from a misericord in Ripple parish church, Worcestershire.
Blacksmiths
Blacksmiths
Smut-smirched smiths, smothered with smoke
Drive me to death with distraction and din.
No one ever heard such noise in the night:
Clamouring of knaves and clattering knocks,
The hog-nosed hobgoblins hollering, “Ho! Coal!”
And blowing their bellows fit to burst brains.
“Huff! Puff!” howls one, “Haff! Paff!” another,
Gnashing and gnawing and groaning together,
Hitting out hotly with mad hammers,
Roundly wrapped in rawhide aprons,
Their shanks hard-clad against sparks.
They heft heavy hammers – hard to handle –
And bang on anvils with angry smacks:
“Luss! Buss! Lass! Dass!”: chorus of crashing!
Devils are doomed by so dreadful a din!
He lengthens by belting, he smelts and he snips,
He twists and he twines, striking three times:
“Tik! Tak! Hic! Hac! Tiket! Taket! Tik! Tak!
Luss! Buss! Luss! Dass!” Such lives they lead:
Mad, blackened farriers! Be merciful, Christ!
They plunge iron in water; ravage the night.
Fourteenth century alliterative poem, translated by Giles Watson. The text is printed in Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman, Middle English Lyrics, 1974, p. 130, and a slightly shortened version has recently been recorded by the Mediaeval Baebes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0H98YU3IWs
The picture shows detail from a misericord in Ripple parish church, Worcestershire.