[Bards] Poetic Exercise #5

[Darius of the Bells]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ulf Gunnarsson" <ulfie at cox.net>
To: "Ansteorran Bardic list" <bards at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 2:22 AM
Subject: [Bards] Poetic Exercise #5


> We have played with the iambic foot.  Now it is time to let the other
> shoe drop and play with the trochaic foot.  The trochaic foot is the
> opposite of the iambic.  It is a pair of syllables, the first being
> stressed and the second being unstressed.  For example:
> 
> "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,..."
> 
> Do you hear the beats in that?
> 
> As with most of these, double unstressed syllables usually count as one
> because they run together when spoken, such as "-ony" in a later line
> from the same poem: "Then this ebony bird beguiling..."
> 
> This form is common in Norse and Old English verse, but started to
> disappear in favor of iambic about the time we started getting all those
> French words mixed into the language.  As the example above illustrates,
> it was never entirely eradicated, and certainly makes a good marching or
> rowing beat in poetry.  Of course, Vikings in the SCA favor it, though
> the Greeks us it once in a while too.
> 
> Another thing once common was the riddle.  Riddle games were as
> respected as chess tournaments, and riddles were often set in verse.
> 
> So... Write a riddle using nothing but trochaic feet.  You can end the
> riddle with a non-metrical question, frequently of the formula "What am
> I?".  It does *not* have to be a hard riddle.
> 
> If you *really* cannot come up with a riddle, then try some trochaic
> verses decrying riddling games.  But try the riddles first, as it can be
> fun to make one.
> 
> My contribution is:
> 
> In the South I can lift a vessel.
> In the North I can break a vessel.
> Many arms and many fingers
> But no hands between them.
> What am I?
> 
> Ulf
> 
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