Celebrating a Blue Moon in Capricornus

 Hello everyone –

 

This weekend, skywatchers around the world will be able to see a celestial rarity – a full Blue Moon – which will be close to Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Capricornus! You can read all about this weekend’s lunar events at Earth & Sky, with a special feature article available from https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/when-is-the-next-blue-moon/?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=3f8661e5f5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-3f8661e5f5-393539193.

 

So just what is a Blue Moon? In this instance, it’s the third Full Moon in a season of the year that contains four (not the usual three) Full Moons. This is a truly rare phenomenon that happens only once every 2.7 years or so (hence the expression, “Once in a Blue Moon”). The Moon won’t actually appear blue in the sky this weekend – but that’s OK – it will still be bright and beautiful, like every other Full Moon that I’ve ever seen.

 

To celebrate this auspicious occasion, here are some of my favorite poems about the Moon, which has been my favorite celestial object for as long as I can remember! J

 

Introduction to Our First Poem:

            The annual cycle of the seasons and its effects on our natural surroundings are recurring themes throughout world literature. The Orphic poets – a guild of ancient Greek philosopher-bards named after their legendary founder, Orpheus – celebrated the changing of the seasons, the wonders of the natural world, and their lofty ideals in poetic chants, several dozen of which were preserved in written form after centuries of oral transmission. In the poetic forms of their protoscientific age (ca. 1000-500 BCE), the Orphic poets chose to personify the forces of Nature, the celestial orbs, and abstract ideals in order to explain how and why the natural world and the human social order function in the ways that they do.  In the following poem, we can learn how the ancient Greeks perceived the Moon, not as a dead rock in space, but as a living entity (or as a celestial orb ruled by a divine guardian – in this case, Artemis [in Greek] or Diana [in Latin]).

 

Orphic Hymn #8: TO THE MOON

(The FUMIGATION from AROMATICS)

 

Hear, divine queen, diffusing silver light,

Bull-horned and wandering through the gloom of Night.

With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide

Night’s torch extending, through the heavens you ride:

Female and Male with borrowed rays you shine,

And now full-orbed, now tending to decline.

Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon,

Whose amber orb makes Night’s reflected noon:

Lover of horses, splendid, queen of Night,

All-seeing power bedecked with starry light.

Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife,

In peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:

Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend,

Who gives to Nature’s works their destined end.

Queen of the stars, all-wife Diana hail!

Decked with a graceful robe and shining veil;

Come, blessed, divine, prudent, starry, bright,

Come lunar-lamp with chaste and splendid light,

Shine on these sacred rites with prosperous rays,

And pleased accept your suppliant’s mystic praise.

 

“Faeries”

By Evaleen Stein (1863-1923)
 

Grandfather says that sometimes,
When stars are twinkling and
A New Moon shines, there come times
When folks see faery-land!

So when there’s next a New Moon,
I mean to watch all night!
Grandfather says a Blue Moon
Is best for faery light,

And in a peach-bloom, maybe,
If I look I shall see
A little faery baby
No bigger than a bee!

 

“Eldorado”

By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

 

Gaily bedight,

A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,  

Had journeyed long,  

Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

 

But he grew old—

This knight so bold—  

And o’er his heart a shadow—  

Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

 

And, as his strength  

Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—  

 ‘Shadow,’ said he,  

 ‘Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?’

 

‘Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,  

Ride, boldly ride,’

The shade replied,—

‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

 

“The Moon” (From A Child’s Garden of Verses, 1885)

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

The Moon has a face like the clock in the hall;

She shines on thieves on the garden wall,

On streets and fields and harbor quays,

And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

 

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,

The howling dog by the door of the house,

The bat that lies in bed at noon,

All love to be out by the light of the Moon.

 

But all of the things that belong to the day

Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;

And flowers and children close their eyes

Till up in the morning the Sun shall arise.

 

 

Until next time – keep looking up! J

 

Rob

 

 

The planet Venus, as photographed by the Mariner X space probe in 1974.

Hello everyone –

 

The planet Venus has returned to the evening sky, visible as a brilliant starlike object above the western horizon as dusk turns into night. Venus is hard to miss, as it’s the third-brightest object in our sky, after the Sun and Moon. Here are some poems about the planet Venus in its aspect as the Evening Star, collected from some of the greatest poets of the last quarter-millennium! 😊

 

“The Evening Star”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,

Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,

Like a fair lady at her casement, shines

The evening star, the star of love and rest!

And then anon she doth herself divest

Of all her radiant garments, and reclines

Behind the somber screen of yonder pines,

With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.

O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!

My morning and my evening star of love!

My best and gentlest lady! even thus,

As that fair planet in the sky above,

Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,

And from thy darkened window fades the light.

 

“Evening Star”

Edgar Allan Poe

 

'Twas noontide of summer,

  And mid-time of night;

And stars, in their orbits,

  Shone pale, thro' the light

Of the brighter, cold moon,

  'Mid planets her slaves,

Herself in the Heavens,

  Her beam on the waves.

    I gazed awhile

    On her cold smile;

Too cold- too cold for me-

  There passed, as a shroud,

  A fleecy cloud,

And I turned away to thee,

  Proud Evening Star,

  In thy glory afar,

And dearer thy beam shall be;

  For joy to my heart

  Is the proud part

Thou bearest in Heaven at night,

  And more I admire

  Thy distant fire,

Than that colder, lowly light.

 

“To the Evening Star”

By William Blake

 

Thou fair-haired angel of the evening,

Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light

Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown

Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!

Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the

Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew

On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes

In timely sleep. Let thy west wing sleep on

The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,

And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,

 

Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,

And the lion glares through the dun forest.

The fleeces of our flocks are covered with

Thy sacred dew; protect with them with thine influence.

 

“To the Planet Venus, An Evening Star” – Composed At Loch Lomond

By William Wordsworth

 

Though joy attend Thee orient at the birth

Of dawn, it cheers the lofty spirit most

To watch thy course when Day-light, fled from earth,

In the grey sky hath left his lingering Ghost,

Perplexed as if between a splendor lost

And splendor slowly mustering. Since the Sun,

The absolute, the world-absorbing One,

Relinquished half his empire to the host

Emboldened by thy guidance, holy Star,

Holy as princely, who that looks on thee,

Touching, as now, in thy humility

The mountain borders of this seat of care,

Can question that thy countenance is bright,

Celestial Power, as much with love as light?

 

“Evening Star”

By H. P. Lovecraft

 

I saw it from that hidden, silent place

Where the old wood half shuts the meadow in.

It shone through all the sunset’s glories—thin

At first, but with a slowly brightening face.

Night came, and that lone beacon, amber-hued,

Beat on my sight as never it did of old;

The evening star—but grown a thousandfold

More haunting in this hush and solitude.

 

It traced strange pictures on the quivering air—

Half-memories that had always filled my eyes—

Vast towers and gardens; curious seas and skies

Of some dim life—I never could tell where.

But now I knew that through the cosmic dome

Those rays were calling from my far, lost home.

 

Happy stargazing! 😊

Rob

 

The Many Faces of Mercury & Hermes Trismegistus

Hello everyone –

Today, I would like to pay tribute all the ACES James Scholar alumni out there who have entered a healthcare profession, especially listmember A.M.T., an amazing M.D. who is celebrating her birthday today. Here’s an article about the “Many Faces of Mercury,” showing how that word has permeated the sciences – from the eightieth chemical element to alchemy and pharmacology, and from the innermost planet of the Solar System to Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary sage of ancient Egypt who was reputed to be a physician of the body and of the soul. Some medieval historians and Renaissance philosophers identified him with the biblical patriarch Enoch, whereas modern Egyptologists would view him as a hybrid of the Egyptian deity Thoth and the Greek deity Hermes (a/k/a the Roman deity Mercury). It is also possible that the figure of Hermes Trismegistus was based on the historical figure of Imhotep (fl. 27^th century BCE), the first known polymath in world history, whose medical “textbook” is preserved in the Edwin Smith papyrus.

 

“The Many Faces of Mercury”

By Rob Chappell

(Adapted & Condensed from Cursus Honorum IX: 3 [October 2008]

                The planet Mercury made headlines earlier this month when it was visited by NASA’s MESSENGER probe.  Mercury is the smallest major planet in the Solar System; it is also the closest planet to the Sun.  It completes one orbit of our parent star every 88 days, but it rotates on its axis every 59 days – so its “day” lasts for two-thirds of its “year.”  Because Mercury has an extremely thin atmosphere, temperatures on its surface can vary between 800 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime to -300 degrees at night.  Needless to say, life as we know it probably doesn’t exist here.

This enhanced photo of the planet Mercury was taken by NASA’s MESSENGER probe on January 14, 2008.  (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

                Astronomical observations of Mercury are documented from the 14th century BCE onward.  Because Mercury always appears within 28 degrees of the Sun in our sky, it is only visible to the naked eye either just before Sunrise or just after Sunset.  Whether known as Hermes (to the Greeks) or Mercury (to the Romans), the innermost planet in our Solar System was named after the swift messenger of the Olympian pantheon because of its rapid movement through the sky.  Mercury was portrayed in art as wearing a pair of winged sandals and carrying a caduceus (a wand with two serpents entwined around it).

                The planet Mercury ceased to be worshiped in the Western world during late antiquity.  However, the planet named after him continued to be studied by medieval astronomers, who drew up increasingly accurate tables of its motions in the sky.  Starting in the 12th century CE, debate ensued among astronomers as to whether Mercury orbited around the Earth (as theorized by most Greek astronomers) or around the Sun (as proposed by a few late antique Roman writers).

                Mercury’s name was also given by the ancients to chemical element #80 – a liquid metal also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum.  Discovered in early historic times, mercury was believed to have both medical and metallurgical applications.  Unfortunately, liquid mercury is poisonous to humans if ingested, and that is what led to the untimely demise of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Dì (259-210 BCE): he drank a mercury-and-jade potion that was supposed to have restored his lost youth!  In modern times, mercury has been used in thermometers, barometers, and other scientific and medical instruments.

                Perhaps Mercury’s most enduring “face” has been that of the legendary Egyptian alchemist, philosopher, and physician – Hermes Trismegistus (“Mercurius Termaximus” in Latin = “Thrice-Greatest Hermes”).  A collection of philosophical and alchemical treatises began to circulate under his name during the first three centuries CE in Alexandria, Egypt – produced by a group of scholars and sages known as the Hermetic School.  The Hermetic tractates preserved Egyptian esoteric traditions about the origin of the cosmos and humankind’s place within it.  In these treatises, Hermes Trismegistus dialogues with his disciples and encourages them to transmit his knowledge to posterity for the benefit of humankind.  After their translation into Latin by the Italian polymath, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Hermetic writings exercised a profound influence upon the Renaissance intellectuals who spearheaded the scientific revolution.  Such intellectual advancements were perhaps foreseen by one of the Hermetic philosophers of ancient Egypt:

“[Humankind] will pursue the inmost secrets of Nature even into the heights and will study the motions of the sky.  Nor is this enough; when nothing yet remains to be known than the furthest boundary of the Earth, they will seek even there the last extremities of night.”  -- Cor Mundi (Heart of the Cosmos), Hermetic Tractate, Early 1st Millennium CE

Editor’s Note: A replica of an Italian Renaissance statue of Hermes Trismegistus carrying the caduceus, an ancient symbol of the healing arts that is still used by medical practitioners today, stands in the lobby of the Carle Forum in Urbana.

 

“Hermes Trismegistus”

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Still through Egypt's desert places
    Flows the lordly Nile,
From its banks the great stone faces
    Gaze with patient smile.
Still the pyramids imperious
    Pierce the cloudless skies,
And the Sphinx stares with mysterious,
    Solemn, stony eyes. 

But where are the old Egyptian
    Demi-gods and kings?
Nothing left but an inscription
    Graven on stones and rings.
Where are Helios and Hephaestus,
    Gods of eldest eld?
Where is Hermes Trismegistus,
    Who their secrets held? 

Where are now the many hundred
    Thousand books he wrote?
By the Thaumaturgists plundered,
    Lost in lands remote;
In oblivion sunk forever,
    As when o'er the land
Blows a storm-wind, in the river
   Sinks the scattered sand. 

Something unsubstantial, ghostly,
    Seems this Theurgist,
In deep meditation mostly
    Wrapped, as in a mist.
Vague, phantasmal, and unreal
    To our thought he seems,
Walking in a world ideal,
    In a land of dreams. 

Was he one, or many, merging
    Name and fame in one,
Like a stream, to which, converging
    Many streamlets run?
Till, with gathered power proceeding,
    Ampler sweep it takes,
Downward the sweet waters leading
    From unnumbered lakes. 

By the Nile I see him wandering,
    Pausing now and then,
On the mystic union pondering
    Between gods and men;
Half believing, wholly feeling,
    With supreme delight,
How the gods, themselves concealing,
    Lift men to their height. 

Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated,
    In the thoroughfare
Breathing, as if consecrated,
    A diviner air;
And amid discordant noises,
    In the jostling throng,
Hearing far, celestial voices
    Of Olympian song. 

Who shall call his dreams fallacious?
    Who has searched or sought
All the unexplored and spacious
    Universe of thought?
Who, in his own skill confiding,
   Shall with rule and line
Mark the border-land dividing
    Human and divine? 

Trismegistus! three times greatest!
    How thy name sublime
Has descended to this latest
    Progeny of time!
Happy they whose written pages
    Perish with their lives,
If amid the crumbling ages
    Still their name survives! 

Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately
    Found I in the vast,
Weed-encumbered somber, stately,
    Grave-yard of the Past;
And a presence moved before me
    On that gloomy shore,
As a waft of wind, that o'er me
    Breathed, and was no more.

Until next time – keep looking up! 😊

Rob

 

Did Brendan the Navigator Reach North America?

Hello everyone –

The 4^th of July is almost here – a time to celebrate all that our nation has achieved over the last 245 years, and all that we have yet to achieve as the future unrolls before us. As we look back on our history, we remember that this continent was initially discovered and settled by the First Nations, whose lineages go back into prehistoric times – at least as far back as the last Ice Age. But who were the first Europeans to reach the Americas? It wasn’t Columbus and his crew in 1492; nor was it the Vikings in 1000; instead, it might have been an Irish monk and his companions in the 6^th century CE!

Here, as a special historical treat, is a poem about St. Brendan the Navigator and his voyages around the Atlantic Ocean – a poem that celebrates both the exhilarations and the hardships of discovering a whole new world.

 

“The Death of Saint Brendan” (Published 1955)
by J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

At last out of the deep seas he passed,
and mist rolled on the shore;
under clouded moon the waves were loud,
as the laden ship him bore
to Ireland, back to wood and mire,
to the tower tall and grey,
where the knell of Cluian-ferta’s bell
tolled in the green Galway.
Where Shannon down to Lough Derg ran
under a rainclad sky
Saint Brendan came to his journey’s end
to await his hour to die.

‘O! tell me, father, for I loved you well,
if still you have words for me,
of things strange in the remembering
in the long and lonely sea,
of islands by deep spells beguiled
where dwell the Elven-kind:
in seven long years the road to Heaven
or the Living Land did you find?’

‘The things I have seen, the many things,
have long now faded far;
only three come clear now back to me:
a Cloud, a Tree, a Star.
We sailed for a year and a day and hailed
no field nor coast of mean;
no boat nor bird saw we ever afloat
for forty days and ten.
We saw no sun at set or dawn,
but a dun cloud lay ahead,
and a drumming there was like thunder coming
and a gleam of fiery red.

Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer
a shoreless mountain stood;
its sides were black from the sullen tide
to the red lining of its hood.
No cloak of cloud, no lowering smoke,
no looming storm of thunder
in the world of men saw I ever unfurled
like the pall that we passed under.
We turned away, and we left astern
the rumbling and the gloom;
then the smoking cloud asunder broke,
and we saw the Tower of Doom:
in its ashen head was a crown of red,
where the fishes flamed and fell.
Tall as a column in High Heaven’s hall,
its feet were deep as Hell;
grounded in chasms the water drowned
and buried long ago,
it stands, I ween, in forgotten lands
where the kings of kings lie low.

We sailed then on, till the wind had failed,
and we toiled then with the oar,
and hunger and thirst us sorely wrung,
and we sang our psalms no more.
A land at last with a silver strand
at the end of strength we found;
the waves were singing in pillared caves
and pearls lay on the ground;
and steep the shores went upward leaping
to slopes of green and gold,
and a stream out of rich and teeming
through a coomb of shadow rolled.

Through gates of stone we rowed in haste,
and passed and left the sea;
and silence like dew fell in that isle,
and holy it seemed to be.
As a green cup, deep in a brim of green,
that with wine the white sun fills
was the land we found, and we saw there stand
on a laund between the hills
a tree more fair than ever I deemed
might climb in Paradise;
its foot was like a great tower’s root,
it height beyond men’s eyes;
so wide its branches, the least could hold
in shade an acre long,
and they rose as steep as mountain-snows
those boughs so broad and strong;
for white as a winter to my sight
the leaves of that tree were,
they grew more close than swan-wing plumes,
all long and soft and fair.

We deemed then, maybe, as in a dream,
that time had passed away
and our journey ended; for no return
we hoped, but there to stay.
In the silence of that hollow isle,
in the stillness, then we sang-
softly us seemed, but the sound aloft
like a pealing organ rang.
Then trembled the tree from crown to stem;
from the limbs the leaves in air
as white birds fled in wheeling flight,
and left the branches bare.
From the sky came dropping down on high
a music not of bird,
not voice of man, nor angel’s voice;
but maybe there is a third
fair kindred in the world yet lingers
beyond the foundered land.
Yet steep are the seas and the waters deep
beyond the White-tree Strand.’

‘O! stay now father! There’s more to say.
But two things you have told:
The Tree, the Cloud; but you spoke of three.
The Star in mind you hold?’
‘The Star? Yes, I saw it, high and far,
at the parting of the ways,
a light on the edge of the Outer Night
like silver set ablaze,
where the round world plunges steeply down,
but on the old road goes,
as an unseen bridge that on the arches runs
to coasts than no man knows.’

‘But men say, father, that ere the end
you went where none have been.
I would here you tell me, father dear,
of the last land you have seen.’

‘In my mind the Star I still can find,
and the parting of the seas,
and the breath as sweet and keen as death
that was borne upon the breeze.
But where they bloom those flowers fair,
in what air or land they grow,
what words beyond the world I heard,
if you would seek to know,
in a boat then, brother, far afloat
you must labor in the sea,
and find for yourself things out of mind:
you will learn no more of me.’

In Ireland, over wood and mire,
in the tower tall and grey,
the knell of Cluain-ferta’s bell
was tolling in green Galway.
Saint Brendan had come to his life’s end
under a rainclad sky,
and journeyed whence no ship returns,
and his bones in Ireland lie.

(from The Notion Club Papers: History of Middle Earth, vol. 9, 1992 edition.)

Happy Independence Day! 😊

Rob

Special Edition: Merry Midsummer Eve Poetry Extravaganza!

                 TONIGHT – Wednesday, June 23 – is Midsummer Eve, a traditional holiday that celebrates the long days and short nights of summertime with bonfires, dancing, feasting, and singing under the stars. In areas north of 50 degrees latitude, the night sky never becomes completely dark at the Summer Solstice (which took place on Sunday, June 20 at 10:32 PM CDT), resulting in a faint twilight glow that lingers all through the night.

                In European folklore, it was believed that Midsummer Eve was when all the Fair Folk (Elves, Faeries, Dryads, Naiads, etc.) held midnight revels to celebrate the high point of the year. (This folk belief is reflected in Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) So here are some poems about things that one might expect to see on Midsummer Eve – Fair Folk, a sky full of stars, and all things enchanting! Be sure to look for the Full Strawberry Supermoon tonight and tomorrow night, shining over the eastern horizon by 9:00 PM (CDT).

 

“The Faery Book”

By Abbie Farwell Brown (1871-1927)

 

When Mother takes the Faery Book

And we curl up to hear,

'Tis "All aboard for Faeryland!"

Which seems to be so near.

 

For soon we reach the pleasant place

Of Once Upon a Time,

Where birdies sing the hour of day,

And flowers talk in rhyme;

 

Where Bobby is a velvet Prince,

And where I am a Queen;

Where one can talk with animals,

And walk about unseen;

 

Where Little People live in nuts,

And ride on butterflies,

And wonders kindly come to pass

Before your very eyes;

 

Where candy grows on every bush,

And playthings on the trees,

And visitors pick basketfuls

As often as they please.

 

It is the nicest time of day -

Though Bedtime is so near, -

When Mother takes the Faery Book

And we curl up to hear.

 

“The Song of Wandering Aengus” (1899)

By William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

NOTE: From the Emerald Isle comes this love-quest poem inspired by classical Irish mythology. Yeats’ poem in turn served as the basis of “Rogue Planet,” the 18^th episode of the 1^st season of STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE.

 

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

 

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

  

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the Moon,

The golden apples of the Sun.

 

“On A Midsummer Eve”

By Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

 

I idly cut a parsley stalk,

And blew therein towards the Moon;

I had not thought what ghosts would walk

With shivering footsteps to my tune.

 

I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand

As if to drink, into the brook,

And a faint figure seemed to stand

Above me, with the bygone look.

 

I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,

I thought not what my words might be;

There came into my ear a voice

That turned a tenderer verse for me.

 

“Moonlight, Summer Moonlight”

By Emily Jane Brontë (1818-1848)

 

‘Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,

All soft and still and fair;

The solemn hour of midnight

Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

 

But most where trees are sending

Their breezy boughs on high,

Or stooping low are lending

A shelter from the sky.

 

And there in those wild bowers

A lovely form is laid;

Green grass and dew-steeped flowers

Wave gently round her head.

 

“Over Hill, Over Dale”

Excerpted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

A wood near Athens. A Faery speaks.

 

Over hill, over dale, 
Thorough bush, thorough brier, 
Over park, over pale, 
Thorough flood, thorough fire
I do wander everywhere, 
Swifter than the Moon’s sphere; 
And I serve the Faery Queen, 
To dew her orbs upon the green: 
The cowslips tall her pensioners be; 
In their gold coats spots you see; 
Those be rubies, Faery favors, 
In those freckles live their savors: 
I must go seek some dew-drops here 
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear. 
Farewell, thou lob of spirits: I’ll be gone; 
Our Queen and all her Elves come here anon.

 

DEDICATION

This Merry Midsummer edition of Quotemail is dedicated to all my friends at the Center for Children’s Books at the University of Illinois. Please visit them @ http://ccb.ischool.illinois.edu to learn more about their programs and publications highlighting the best new literature for children and young adults.

 

Merry Midsummer, everyone! 😊

 

Rob

 

Special Edition: Merry Midsummer Preview & Happy Juneteenth!

 Hello everyone –

 

We’re more than halfway through the month of June today, and that can mean only one thing: listmembers’ favorite Quotemail holiday is coming up soon! (That’s Midsummer Eve, BTW, and it happens next Windsday night, June 23^rd, starting at sunset.) So to get us ready for the Midsummer Eve revels with the Fair Folk, here’s an article that I wrote many years ago for the ACES James Scholars, along with an early poem by J. R. R. Tolkien about an elvish minstrel named Tinfang Warble.

 

“The Lost Road to Faerie: Where Science and Folklore Meet”

By Rob Chappell, Editor

Excerpted from Cursus Honorum VII: 10 (May 2007)

       From prehistoric times until the rise of modern science, most human beings regarded the world as an enchanted place. Fabulous beasties like dragons and unicorns roamed along the edges of medieval maps; the stars were animated by “intelligences” that guided them in their celestial circuits; and the “Fair Folk” resided in the depths of caves or beneath hollow hills. With the advent of the scientific and industrial revolutions, belief in such things waned throughout much of the Western world, to be replaced by a reliance on science and reason. Traditional folk beliefs have often been derided as superstitious nonsense, but every once in a while, scientific research uncovers evidence that the folk beliefs of yesteryear might once have had a basis in reality.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We dare not go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And a white owl's feather.

-- “The Fairies” by William Allingham (1824-1889)

       Such a discovery occurred in 2003, when a team of Australian and Indonesian paleoanthropologists unearthed the fossilized remains of eight prehistoric humans on the Indonesian island of Flores. What is so remarkable about these people is that they stood only three feet tall – yet they were fully-grown adults! They belonged to a newly classified human species – Homo Floresiensis – that lived alongside modern humans (Homo Sapiens) on Flores from 50,000 to perhaps 500 years ago.

       These recently discovered people – hailed as “Hobbits” in the popular press – are apparently an offshoot of previous human populations that had rafted over to the Indonesian archipelago at an even earlier date. According to evidence collected on Flores, these “Hobbits” (named after the halfling heroes in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth legendarium) were fully human in their abilities and behavior. They made sophisticated tools, used fire, hunted, fished, and (based on their anatomy) possessed the power of articulate speech. According to the Flores islanders’ folklore, these prehistoric people might have survived until the arrival of Dutch explorers in the 16th century.

       How do these recent scientific discoveries intersect with ancient folk beliefs? People from all over the world have been telling stories about the “Wee Folk” – faeries, gnomes, leprechauns, etc. – since the beginning of recorded history. These tales tell of small humanlike individuals who dwelt in caves or within hollow hills. These “Fair Folk” or “Good People,” as they were euphemistically called, lived in communities ruled by monarchs or chieftains, and they were adept at many crafts (such as mining or shoemaking). Their alleged healing abilities, musical artistry, and ability to “disappear” without fanfare when one of us “Big People” came wandering along may have led our ancestors to regard them as magical creatures instead of fellow human beings. These habits of the “Wee Folk” may also have had the unfortunate effect of making our ancestors fear and shun them.

       The possible extinction of Homo Floresiensis in historical times might be reflected in a recurrent folkloric motif about the disappearance of the “Wee Folk” from everyday experience, as in the opening lines of Geoffrey Chaucer’s (1340-1400) “Wife of Bath’s Tale”:

In the old time of King Arthur,

Of whom the Britons speak with great honor,

All this land was filled full of Faerie;

The Elf Queen, with her jolly company,

Danced full oft in many a green mead.

This was the old opinion, as I read;

I speak of many hundred years ago,

But now no one can see the elves, you know.

       Of course, the identification of the “Wee Folk” from faerie lore with Homo Floresiensis is somewhat speculative at this point. Nonetheless, we should bear in mind that many legends have been found to have a basis in fact, and that some activities and characteristics of our halfling human cousins might have found their way into traditional faerie tales. Perhaps contemporary folklorists will want to collaborate with paleoanthropologists and reexamine the faerie lore of long ago and faraway to see what “data” might be gleaned from worldwide folklore about our diminutive prehistoric kindred. To learn more about how Homo Floresiensis could have been (mis)perceived by our ancestors, you might enjoy visiting the following resources:

Related Links of Interest

• The Secret Commonwealth (1692) by Robert Kirk (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm) is a fascinating description of the “Fair Folk” and their society, based on the then-current folk beliefs of the Scots-Irish Highlanders.
• The Fairy Mythology (1870) by Thomas Keightley (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/index.htm) contains a vast sampling of faerie lore from around the world.
• Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), edited and selected by William Butler Yeats (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/yeats/fip/index.htm), is a classic collection of Irish faerie tales from the KeltiK Renaissance.

 

“Over Old Hills and Far Away” (1915)

By J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

 

It was early and still in the night of June,

And few were the stars, and far was the Moon,

The drowsy trees drooping, and silently creeping

Shadows woke under them while they were sleeping.

 

I stole to the window with stealthy tread

Leaving my white and unpressed bed;

And something alluring, aloof and queer,

Like perfume of flowers from the shores of the mere

That in Elvenhome lies, and in starlit rains

Twinkles and flashes, came up to the panes

Of my high lattice-window. Or was it a sound?

I listened and marveled with eyes on the ground.

For there came from afar a filtered note

Enchanting sweet, now clear, now remote,

As clear as a star in a pool by the reeds,

As faint as the glimmer of dew on the weeds.

 

Then I left the window and followed the call

Down the creaking stairs and across the hall

Out through a door that swung tall and grey,

And over the lawn, and away, away!

 

It was Tinfang Warble that was dancing there,

Fluting and tossing his old white hair,

Till it sparkled like frost in a winter Moon;

And the stars were about him, and blinked to his tune

Shimmering blue like sparks in a haze,

As always they shimmer and shake when he plays.

 

My feet only made there the ghost of a sound

On the shining white pebbles that ringed him round,

Where his little feet flashed on a circle of sand,

And the fingers were white on his flickering hand.

In the wink of a star he had leapt in the air

With his fluttering cap and his glistening hair;

And had cast his long flute right over his back,

Where it hung by a ribbon of silver and black.

 

His slim little body went fine as a shade,

And he slipped through the reeds like mist in the glade;

And laughed like thin silver, and piped a thin note,

As he flapped in the shadows his shadowy coat.

O! the toes of his slippers were twisted and curled,

But he danced like a wind out into the world.

 

He is gone, and the valley is empty and bare

Where lonely I stand and lonely I stare.

Then suddenly out in the meadows beyond,

Then back in the reeds by the shimmering pond,

Then afar from a copse where the mosses are thick

A few little notes came a trillaping quick.

 

I leapt o’er the stream and I sped from the glade,

For Tinfang Warble it was that played;

I must follow the hoot of his twilight flute

Over reed, over rush, under branch, over root,

And over dim fields, and through rustling grasses

That murmur and nod as the old elf passes,

Over old hills and far away

Where the harps of the Elvenfolk softly play.

 

NEWSFLASH: Readers may already be aware that Juneteenth (June 19^th) is now an official federal holiday in the United States. To celebrate this historic occasion, here is a musical tribute from 121 years ago.

 

Lift Every Voice and Sing (1900)

By James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

Editor’s Note: This poem, which has come to be known as the African-American national anthem, was originally composed for a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in 1900..

 

1. Lift every voice and sing

Till earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun

Let us march on till victory is won.

 

2. Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chastening rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

 

3. God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who hast by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand.

True to our God,

True to our native land.

 

 

Stay tuned for our annual Midsummer Eve rhymes and revels in next week’s edition of Quotemail!

 

Rob

 

Celebrating Flag Day (6/14) & Juneteenth (6/19)

Hello everyone –

June’s parade of patriotic holidays continues next Monday, June 14^th with Flag Day, which commemorates the adoption of the first “official” American flag by the Continental Congress in 1777. Our first poem was chosen in honor of this legendary occasion:

 

“Betsy’s Battle Flag”

By Minna Irving (1872)

Editor’s Note: This poem was written in homage to Betsy Ross, who is widely credited with producing the first edition of the “Stars and Stripes” American flag for the Continental Congress in 1777.

 

1. From dusk till dawn the livelong night

She kept the tallow dips alight,

And fast her nimble fingers flew

To sew the stars upon the blue.

With weary eyes and aching head

She stitched the stripes of white and red.

And when the day came up the stair

Complete across a carven chair

Hung Betsy’s battle-flag.

 

2. Like shadows in the evening gray

The Continentals filed away,

With broken boots and ragged coats,

But hoarse defiance in their throats;

They bore the marks of want and cold,

And some were lame and some were old,

And some with wounds untended bled,

But floating bravely overhead

Was Betsy’s battle-flag.

 

3. When fell the battle’s leaden rain,

The soldier hushed his moans of pain

And raised his dying head to see

King George’s troopers turn and flee.

Their charging column reeled and broke,

And vanished in the rolling smoke,

Before the glory of the stars,

The snowy stripes, and scarlet bars

Of Betsy’s battle-flag.

 

4. The simple stone of Betsy Ross

Is covered now with mold and moss,

But still her deathless banner flies,

And keeps the color of the skies.

A nation thrills, a nation bleeds,

A nation follows where it leads,

And every man is proud to yield

His life upon a crimson field

For Betsy’s battle-flag!

 

Juneteenth (next Saturday, June 19th) is an upcoming patriotic holiday that celebrates the proclamation of freedom given to enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865. These were the last enslaved people to be freed in the American South after the conclusion of the Civil War two months before. The observance of Juneteenth, at first focused in Texas, has since spread all over the United States. In our own century, Juneteenth serves to remind us of the plight of millions of people throughout the world who still need liberation from the bondage of slavery.

In honor of the 156^th anniversary of Juneteenth, and of all the heroes who have sought to abolish the slave trade from ancient times to the present, here is an article that I penned several years ago for the honors newsletter about Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist movement, and the Underground Railroad.

 

Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman: Leaders and Liberators

By Rob Chappell

Reprinted from CURSUS HONORUM (COURSE OF HONORS) IX: 8 (March 2009)

       In honor of Women’s History Month, the I would like to share the stories of two women who were prominent leaders in the American abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements during the nineteenth century. These courageous leaders have inspired countless women after them to work for liberty, justice, and equality for all people. The two African-American heroes highlighted in this article are Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) and Harriet Tubman (1820-1913).

       Sojourner Truth (originally named Isabella Baumfree) was born a slave in upstate New York, at a time when slavery had not yet been abolished throughout the North. She obtained her freedom in 1826 and worked at various jobs until she found her lifelong vocation in 1843: campaigning for human rights. On June 1 of that year, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth and began traveling and speaking throughout the northeastern states. During the 1840s and 1850s, she enthralled hundreds of audiences with her spirited addresses advocating the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage, while her autobiography (NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH, A NORTHERN SLAVE), published in 1850, continued to galvanize the abolitionist movement.

       Truth’s most famous address, AIN’T I A WOMAN, was delivered before the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron during 1851. She worked for the Union Army and the Freedmen’s Bureau in Washington, DC during the Civil War and continued her speaking tours on behalf of women’s suffrage until her eventual retirement in Battle Creek, Michigan. Because of her championing of equal rights for African-Americans and for all women, she became known as the “Miriam of the Latter Exodus.”

       Harriet Tubman (originally named Araminta Ross) was born a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. After escaping to freedom in Pennsylvania at the age of 29, she returned to Maryland several times to liberate other slaves. Tubman became a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, clandestinely leading Southern slaves to freedom in the northern United States or in British Canada, where slavery had been abolished since 1833. She conveyed secret messages to her “passengers” on the Underground Railroad through songs like “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” This ingenious piece of music taught runaway slaves how to use the Big Dipper to find the North Star, which would guide their nocturnal journeys to freedom in the northern United States or British Canada:

 

“When the Sun comes back,

And the first quail calls,

Follow the Drinking Gourd.

For the old man is a-waiting

For to carry you to freedom,

If you follow the Drinking Gourd.”

 

       During the Civil War, Tubman served in the Union Army as a scout and guide, and in June 1863, she became the first woman in American history to lead a combat operation, in which hundreds of slaves were liberated in South Carolina. After the Civil War, she worked tirelessly for women’s suffrage and full equality for African-Americans, finally obtaining a government pension after decades of struggle in 1899. She made her home in Auburn, New York – the center of her humanitarian work for the last 44 years of her life.

       The legacy of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman continues today as courageous women of the 21st century work, as Sojourner Truth said, “to set [the world] right side up again.” Through writing, speaking, researching, and volunteering, the successors of these two liberating leaders are helping all of us to build a brighter future for all people.

 

Webliography

•       http://www.sojournertruth.org/Default.htm (Sojourner Truth Institute)

•       http://www.harriettubman.com/index.html (Harriet Tubman Infohub)

•       http://www.freedomcenter.org/ (National Underground Railroad Freedom Center)

•       http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/special/mlk/gourd2.html (Text of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” with Commentary from NASA)

•       http://nationaljuneteenth.com/ (National Juneteenth Observance Foundation)

 

I look forward to seeing Harriet Tubman’s portrait on a future $20 bill!

 

Until next time –

Rob