Epos Propagandum

EPOS PROPAGANDUM

Sumerian Origin

The Sumerian Stone Tablets discovered in their thousands

Tell of the full administrative religious agricultural and

Cosmological life and origins on Earth

Listen as I speak the birth

Of cities of people before and after the flood’s deluge

In the fertile cresent of the Euphrates the cradle used

To make man

Where was an amazing civilization

According to cuniform wedge shaped glyphs

On these tablets, unexpected gifts

From the past which astonishing tosay

Specifically and scientifically relay

That Annunaki came from the sky

And made a man the earth to ply

For the orme gold

This man was called

Adapta or Adama

Begat by Birth Goddesses in the Temples of Procreation

A hybrid made for menial tasks with genetic limitations

Arduous on those priestesses to keep up the production

Hybrids cannot reproduce they need this skilled induction

It has come to be understood generally

That these stone texts tell the same story

That in Genesis is written down in less detail

Yes the Old Testament portrayal

Of Adam and Eve by God conceived

Has its’ root in far older Sumeria please

Understand that the Dead Sea Scrolls

Of a far profounder knowledge told

And that Sky Gods were what they meant.

Anu the Sun father sired Enlil and Enki

His sons by different mothers

Sibling rivalry was with these half brothers

Enki felt the ruling line

Came always through the Mothers side

Enlil was made general Lord of the Earth

Enki of the Sea was made an engineer, of quite some worth

This was ordained from space by these Annunaki

Who sound to me just like the Illuminati

At Nippur Enlil’s temple stood long

The male side of the family was coming on strong

Dominance of nature was going on

Though not all sources agree

It seems to have been much the degree

Enki designed a mortal to work very hard

Not too bright a bit of a retard

With his sister Ninki fashioned from clays

Homonculi inspiring it life with her ways

So keen for gold these Annunaki were

That soon Enki thought the treatment not fair

Of his creation he had made

Cursed to mine for all his days

Perhaps his little golem child blew his mind

He saw its’ potential thought his overlords unkind

Enlil made Edin as Lord of All Earth

This is as Genesis chapter the first

Exepting that God just isn’t around

It does correspond the scholarship’s sound

Enki gets to be the snake

Tries to get Adam and Eve to wake

By munching opon the knowledge tree

That was good for your spirituality

Yet Enlil it was who kicked them out for it

And Enki who fitted them out with new kit

Sourced his golems some prime DNA

Saying you don’t have to be this way

You shall be able to be who you are

Know of yourself and of the stars

To have children so you’re not dependent on us

You bet his actions caused lots of fuss

With bright mind awareness these people came

Perhaps were Cro-Magnons to give them a name

Suddenly civilized with knowledge of stars

From where had they come to fly so far?

When it came to the flood, that was Enlil’s doing

This was a party he was poo-pooing

Yet Enki the Engineer gave the measure

Of a stout vessel that could weather

Angry Enlil’s dire deluge

And when the storm at last was through

Enki, Noah and All started again

From that anchient mountain range

I hear of them set up in Egypt

Developing a magic that eclypsed

Enlil’s lot who were mining again

He was not keen on them using brains

The Tower of Babel was Enlil’s instigation

Scrambling up all human communication

Trying to thwart the divine spark

That Enki had felt to impart

Seeding thinking everywhere

This was getting Enlil scared

Tensions built up looks to blow a fuse

With a whole diplomatic subterfuge

The Royal Gods at loggerheads

Then it came that thing we dread

A nuclear war sparred by Enlil’s two sons

Blew Sodom and Gemorrah to kingdom come

The fall out blew over the Euphrates

Killed all of Sumer and some of the deities

It is said that Enlil hated their wisdom and learning

So finally conspired to set it all burning

He had to temper it after that collaterol

And Enlil played it less uni-lateral

Retired a bit as the ages rolled

The little man was out of control

And forming a world from his own native ken

Away from the fall out and explosions

Where there would be floods and there would be fire

But some they were living who were inspired

To ride out misfortune and live to the max

This story on stone tablets was written as facts

An attempt at scientific explanation

As above so below

The Celestial Heavens

And the Earth we chose

A tapestry in truth

Wove with stars

Mirror sewn

All that is known is here

That which is not is clearly

Stitched with hands that laced the void

Abiding cold yet kind

Star jewelled mind

Space is a womb that has no name

Clustered with bright stars like rain

Science tells us that when it's all over

They can collapse and go super-nova

Exploders that atomize

Leave a black hole behind

Spitting radiation tracers from the event horizon

Molecular chains evident

In free form gas clouds inclement

No life here it would seem

No one yet sleeps to dream

Yet a greater dream from a deeper sleep

Is waiting cocooned somewhere deep

From when thrown out by heavy metals' fusion

Life is not a foregone conclusion

Conditions must arise for that

And in scorching post explosion scene

That is as yet unlikely

Let us follow the globule

Of far flung planet making matter

As has splattered from the nova supra

Un-gelled into molecular soup

Wherein these dudes interact

Coupling up or in threes or more

Linking chains of potential

Elemental sorting codes check each other out

Zipping into electrical docks

Forming cliques more ridgid forms become

Shaped by space over aeons

A million million suns began

Planets can eventually become from these

Raging collections of itinerent chains

Of connectivity spun by gravity

Seemingly chance creativity

Slowly our solar system spun

Out on a galactic arm quite far from anyone

Quiet here so far out you get these conditions

Seemed fit for life so it began

What was exceptional in our case

Was our moon we know it's silvery face

Yet we owe it alot for our process

Now seen as the pull of seas tides

And the tug of watery emotions inside

But before gravitational lure kneeded

The Earth's molten core and surface

Trawling up from that deep heart elemental traces

Minerals mixed up moon pummelled it so

Majestic matron with guiding hands

We were her baby planet dough

Perhaps she knew the time would come

(For Time she embodies with patience long)

When conditions would cool

Out here on this distant cosmic spool

When moon's luminous light

And nurturing draw

Had kept the little dream

Safe from harm

When what do you know?

LIFE APPEARED

Small at first but determined and weird

One thing leads to another

Amoebas' one cell splits

And here comes mitosis

Building blocks of existance

Making matter from plankton getting eaten

The bones and shells of a trillion trillion

Trillobites caeolin and sea creatures

Thrown up by deep earth ruptures

To form high mountain structures

Repeatedly drawn beneath waves

Challenging the new crawling forms to be brave

And to emerge in spite of it all

-Behold the all new back bone evolved

Out of the sea they say it came

Where womb waters sustained

Creatures before names

Adapting to survive

Up for it some new all consuming ride

Through the birth channel existance

A new species joins the dance

Primaeval romance takes place

Through Earth shifts and ice age

Life forms cascaded on each other fed

Loved and paraded

Feared and maybe faded

Or stayed and related

The rock tells the tale

It was there all along

Formed and unformed

The subject of songs

Sung by a God or a Gnosis or need

Of feminine protagonist brooding to breed

Plentifold forms upon this still forming world

Whose rocks relative recent were hurled

From mouth of creation and spun through space

Nursed and cradled by Moon Mother in our case

Now bringing life to a circumstance rich

With potential for something really big

The great landmass of Pangaea

Formed when the heavenly fire

Cooled sufficient from the molten starstuff

Powered by the heavy metal elements - we've got enough

And more

Through the core

Also spotted about ourshaken up and stirred up orb

As hurtled through space at temperatures sub-zero

In the vacuum certain features appeared through

The core

And in the crust and on the face

Choice substances were folded

Giant landscapes hot were scolded

By the rare and strange substance water

Which did immensly alter

Everything everywhere

And as I said that moon drew

These waters like the molten magma it had drawn before

Managing the tides

While below

Magma was ever still

Making mountains rise

Turning it all inside out

Mixing up with celestial ease

Warmed by sun by space was freezed

Till a place suited for life to appear

As water drawn into vast glacier

Revealed solid rock scraped by the sea’s harsh kiss

Making bold shapes of crags and crevice

Though deep beneath the magma remained

At thin places appeared through veins

In rock to erupt as volcanics forming land

Rich in minerals we understand

Are good for growth of forms of life

That so

Did it grow

Becoming more recognisable as the world we know

But remember I called it Pangaia

One Land

So we had it named

Existing way before man and his dubious fame

Still turbulant earth could not be restrained

And it's form often rearranged

By earth quake and starstorm which it endured

And of which it can never be cured

Perpetual change of this planets form

Perpetual movement that is the norm

Heated by sun and frozen by space

Pummeled by moon drawing metals to it's face

Magnetized by poles that change at will

Peopled by creatures that each other kill

To sustain their bodies by eating each other

Each one requiring a father and mother

And so it goes on through ages rolling

Spinning through space where is it going

Round in eliptoid cycles of time

So I speak of these cycles in rhymes

The dinosaurs roared for such and such million years

(They were my first interest ever my dears)

Oh and how strangely they met their collective death

Their pre-historic prescences just left

Through climate change that only fluffy mammals survived

In little pockets of warm environs did hide

From the freeze I mean what could you do

When the time was right it all pushed through

Glaciers receed and melt the cold assuages

Forming frowns that are actually hill ranges

Worn away by running water and the winds of ages

Life follow in different stages

We hear of them Neathandertal men

Who first appeared way way back when

Dragging a mate by the hair to a cave

In two million B.C. it was all the rage

With stone clubs as the local currency

These lot fitted in with the scene

And life went on much the same

Perhaps life just needed a change

Because this was not all it felt it could be

Cro-Magnon Man people thus come along

With whom we may have much in common

Suddenly present all over the globe

With a large brain and cool cave art to show

They made pots and brought culture

Perceived time in the moon cycles

This was not all they could do!

All of this to earth was new

Quite what went on we can hardly tell

A progression was now possible

And certain Gods could see

What they could become to be

The potential was there within

The human spark seed that could begin

Conscious exploration of it all

The earth space and life universal

That is to say we became aware

Of our surroundings and we dared

With courage and intelligence

To explain with language what we meant

To work together war together

Moving and choosing a destiny

Meeting and making young

Into this prime world flung

Where sabre tooth tigers

And mammoths abound

Perilous place in which they found

The means to survive and even do well

Hunting and gathering in land primaeval

Arranged in social structures

With a mind to work it out

Could be where our greatest advances

And set backs occured

In our formative years

Our seed was set

A mind that could control and cajole and trick

Primitive people were by no means thick

They could organize fraternize fractilize

Forage forget fear and placate

They must have been trippers

With the culture they delivered

Where did it come from

Was it seeded from the stars

Could we get that far

There is much I cannot see

Was never written down in history

Yet this is what I distant see

Bubbling up through history

In the brimming crucible of life

Those were heady days indeed in old Sumer

Right next to Africa when they sat together

Suitable weather brought out

Our sense of adventure

And we that is us lot were off

Needing succulent lands in search we went

Sapient man and woman

Seeking innovation sent by inner need

To step out feel and see

New places pouring out of the pot

Travel initiate

Life had a lot to do

Finding itself in all sorts of scrapes

New beasts they found and ate

Or were eaten

Cousins they met and loved

Or gave / were given a beating

What have we got to proove their passing?

Bits of broken monument hidden in the soil

Remains of anchient artefacts in tombs of persons Royal

All that there is

Is not much to see

So we fill in

With imagination based on facts

Rather like these bardic tracts

Lives of women and men

We do what we can

To remember our ancestors well

Yet history lessons taught it that

These people didn't have much going for them

It's almost like they'd been condemned

As something called primitive

As if that was limited

Whose purposes now we can't fully separate

From our own indoctrination of this age

Turning our untrue history page

Moulded by our modern persuasions

Of course I have my own

With which I seed this story sown

With dubious fact but poetic flow

For as a bard I have lies to tell

I have truths truly to give as well

You'll have to work it out where they are

-Maybe ask that falling star

It will make as much sense

As regards which side of the fence

Logic and reason might be sitting

Acting out their reality decisions

Yet on goes the tale for I've made provisions

And much we don’t know for how can we tell

Of these cycles of life who can say well

Let us assume there was vigour and heart

Of another age whose players were part

Of galactic and local plays

Under the sun of different days

Some say we were seeded from space

Some cultures speak of our fall from grace

Where came we from who knows

But we do know that life was here

Yet water locked in glacial ice

Made the sea-water level not so high

So rather than the land sinking

As many people have been thinking

It was that the sea rose up

Overflowed the cup

That had been the known world

Many times this had occurred

Until the more modern world

We have called Atlantis

From the God Atlas who sleeps there in stately bliss

It was place of high science

And society refined

Till bad crystal magic led to decline

Not that the land fell

Consumed by the Santorin eruption of Crete

Which is how they tell it

Placed neat somewhere in the Mediterranian

Yet conversly I hear that the waves rose

As we know

All this can happen again

Plato had it from scribe Solon

Whose source was the

Careful Egyptian priests

Who would not an error have made

Concerning the whereabouts of

The lost continent and where it was laid

Most likely tales that reach us

Are from that volcanic distruction at Crete’s Knossos

Confused through times

As storytellers are inclined

With their adornments of another ages catastrophy

Adding to the mystery

With touches of orichalcum and gold

From a different disaster recalled

But Atlantis is of Atlas and the Atlantic should it speak any

Where that God and others are said still to slumber hear me

Could not it have been a regular Ice Age ending

Think of all that water it would have been sending

Coursing down channels in the terrain

Land and sea all rearranged

Ice-packed for 50,000 years till 10,000 B.C.

Sea level change a million refugees

Forming roughly the Europe we now know

Ireland and North England had been under glacial sub-zero

Until all this ended and the water it flowed

The seas were lower in ages past

And you could walk all the way over from France

No English channel or North Sea you see

And the lost land of Lyonesee

Streched out to the Scillies

Brittany’s lost land was named Ys

To the west under the sea still connected it is

So only the oldest memories most forgot

Remember of these old time plots

Of now mythologized ground

With no history to be found

Now touched by these old memories begin

The tales that have been saved

Of subsequent Gods takeover

And of the terrible overflowing waves

Enoch was a seer from before the flood

Noah’s great great grandfather it is said

Was taken from Ethiopia through the air whirled west

To a mountain of copper iron gold and tin

Could these have been west coas Atlantean mines he was visioning

Here are found cave homes for Pyrenian and Iberian Megalith raisers

Who had sailed the coasts Trail-blazers

Leaving their calendar stones behind

Astronomical markers for all time

With remains in Britain

As seen similar in anchient Troy

Also along the shores to Sumeria and Persia they are deployed

Could these be the paths of those pre-history folk

Sea-farers geomancers of which Enoch’s vision spoke

Guiding later generations to the metals in the West

Nearby to Avalon which I love the best

Who inhabited these lands where once these people strolled

No recorded word so how can we know

No digi-camera just geology and carbon dating

For accuracy not a very high rating

For sure I count most on dreamtime

Poetic expression is all I can find

But we do have hints and we do have clues

I’ll present you with bardery if you want to chew

Neolithic scientists fit the bill

Cro-Magnon man give me quite a thrill

They seem the rock stars of my old world view

They were not stupid

What couldn’t they do

They had no Mc Donald’s we found no remains

Had atom-power but of a different strain

Pr’haps these old stones were not for sacrifice

But were set up not for this vice

Conducting and channeling the solar light

These old time mathematicians had the angles right

But with another purpose than stocks and shares

They laid out a network that webs all-wheres

With megaliths yer regular standing stones

Or tumuli tombs for holding old bones

Marking the spots and linking the line

Anchient people took plenty of time

Putting these stones up in intricate patterns

Across vast landscapes

They felt it mattered

But not just in one locale all round the earth

These systems strech this wide worlds girth

Lasting way beyond the life of one man

Indicating what?

How can our intellects understand

The workings of another mind and time

Our present science judges and judges unkind

What can it do it cannot comprehend

So with poesy some help it will lend

And speak of dragon-lines that live in the ground

Of serpent power that’s what I found

When I dipped my mind into my life’s eye

John Michell and my dad showed me where they lie

These dragons

One who runs round the globe

The Michael-Mary is how it is known

It would have existed way before the flood

Original geomancy worked in sweat toil and mud

Taking and placing the stones on points

Of earth meridian sunlight to anoint

At certain angles of sky to land

The subtle effect must have been profound

If they went to those lengths to put it all in place

Different cultures and peoples across the earth’s surface

Just think undo the mind if you can

Such were the doings of pre-wheel man

Was it to here that the lizard lords came

From far space with an exploitative aim

To mine our gold but they weren’t all bad

They brought prime DNA too for which we should be glad

Yes the lizard kind in their Death star

The asteroid Niberu had travelled from far

Bearing the usual gamut of characters

For good guys and bad guys they match us

David Icke seems to put them all in one despotic pot

Whose descendants are illuminati and all that dodgy lot

Ruling through royalty banks and multi-nationals

So that to be pro-lizard is unfashionable

Anu the Sun king begat two sons

Prince Enlil and lord Enki were the ones

Sent to earth on a gold seeking jaunt

To mine the whole solar system that they had brought

In an integalactical takeover bid

It was the gold that took off their lid

Once in their blood they could fractilize

Which was their route to space travel

Realize

What this meant to the creatures on the earth at the time

Enslaved to mine gold for them what a crime

Some say they man fashioned in making rooms

Moulds for the creation of sub-human souls

But golems we were with no mind of our own

Till Lord Enki it was who kindness showed

He secretly donated much more DNA

Than any lizard regulations did say

Yet his mum was fey kin from the beginning

In his blood

Tingled the genus that opened the floodOf consciousness expanded to warp speed nine

He didn’t need earth gold to mainline

He got it from source out the dragons mouth

And gave it quite liberally all about

That curious Cro-magnon who appears in many parts

Suddenly on earth with big brain and arts

Superior far to Neathandertol man

In that they could speak and understand

What each other said thus language was born

A culture evolved of a high degree spawned

Enki saw the aptitude of the Cro-Magnon crew

Admired their abilities felt it was due

Something extra for the ape hybrid that he had been ordained

To put in those makin’ shacks to rearrange

With that much more DNA to make a man

Get him livin’ in the greater plan

The benevolent Enki worked it with

The Isu priests who secretly helped cultivate the gift

The light to cast into the future

Evolutionary link life-line producer

To take us through when it gets dark

Producing death-birth resurrection spark

Built to span the apocalypse

Born to go to kiss the lips

Of tomorrow reassured

By dragons nurtured

Fed with the stuff

That dreams are made of

It seems that the risk Enki took paid off

And mankind developed with potential

No supra mortal to be but still exponential

In his aims even with a dark side

It was worth it for the whole ride

We have the innate state within

Due largely to the dragon kin

Who dared look beyond the limitation

To see ourselves as really one

A simple point but it goes far

With repressors this notion jars

But with Dragon DNA we outgrow this criminality

To contain both poles in all reality

Apollo and Dionysius in one game

Full freedom if you were to give it a name

All in a whole what does this mean

Converse authorities staight lace and libertine

Holistic is another term

Ouroboros is the circled worm

Encompassing a consciousness

As danger so close does it press

Knowing as we look into each others eyes

This lizards twinkle is there-surprised?

You would be if you knew how far

We had come since that Nibiru Death-Star

Dropped off their team of initiates

To Earth to graspingly officiate

In running their space travel programme

And what a total jam

That was

Those greedy geckonidae gods

But let’s not worry about them because

Here’s a toast to our benefactor Lord Enki

He allowed us humans potential to be

Such potential is hard to grasp

For those who did so well in class

At competitions to see whose the best

With the biggest score that beats all the rest

Obscuring the greatest wisdom of all

That is our unity beyond any walls

Or divisions so righteously put in place

By so-called benefactors of the human race

With a thousand tracts which most call law

And believing in that fatal flaw

That says women are not good enough

To make the grade

T’was just too much

To let them in

The gates of enlightenment

They could not win

Entrance to where a bold man goes

But here comes the story see as it shows

How one of our competent dragon girls

Made the grade at a date when

Faeries toiled

Yet were sadly foiled

Because they were too female or too young

Now listen this is how it is spun

It was the time of a great assembly

The moment when buddhas first learnt to be

When Shakyamuni Buddha first awoke

It was the lotus sutra that he spoke

But before he could begin to relate

He felt he had to make them wait

Full three times this Buddha had to be implored

For that peoples hearts were seeking he had to be assured

Before he preached out loud for once and all time

The thread that contains the lifestate sublime

Of Buddha-hood in a Buddha land

He is reaching out to lend a hand

Beyond the confines of the mind

Thinking head will never find

We can move through needling insecurities

Even with our impurities

We can make it just as we are

Every man woman and child a star

This dragon girl was there among the most learned disciples

Each of them fully versed in Buddhist text and principle

Awaiting the Thus Come One’s chosen words

Which they could never have imagined or heard

Expecting that they would be the kind

Who quickly would enter the golden mind

Manjushri Maudgalyana Devadatta Shariputra

Were all eager to hear this new Lotus Sutra

Thrice they appealed to him to recount

His great enlightenment to give it out

While billions of beings all bent their ear

Waiting his golden words to hear

And when it came they didn’t get it

Into their intellects it wouldn’t fit

When up came this dragon king’s daughter

It seemed as if the Buddha had already taught her

She stood no chance on three social scores

Namely she was female a lizard and only eight years old

Yet up she flew to the front of the class

Receiving enlightenment fully unsurpassed

Wise men gorped with goggeling eyes

They were gobsmacked and full surprised

She had come from beyond their ken

They stood agog these learned men

She excelled the learning of the foremost ones

She had done so since from before time begun

And all were joyed that this was so

For it isn’t what or even who you know

But what’s within that starts the glow

And the gathered disciples and universal throng

Rejoiced in tumultuous story song

That even the dragon king’s daughter had it in her

And that by her example they could all be winners

Buddha cannot be stopped in this life if you choose

And they could all sense the proper use

Of wisdom and learning – not the same thing

Wisdom it comes straight from within

Exceeding austerities of a million years

In this life now it is so clear

Not that at book learning I will make sneers

They contain knowledge that can cut through fears

Wisdom is what fills our tummy grail cup

Garnering knowledge helps sure enough

Most importantly though certain by far

Is wisdom of who you really are

This Lizard girl so well shows us

How it is we are already sussed

As ourselves with no go-between

Unlike philosophies somewhat more mean

That promise it next life and as a man

Before your greater life says you can

Know what it is to live so true

In a universe reflecting you

That was in a time before time

A golden time and we were all there

Worlds within worlds within worlds it as said

Are present in us and the ways that we fare

For at present the seas are higher

But before you could walk straight over to Eire

On what is now the sea bed

It has since all turned on it's head

Yet here it certainly is said

Came the Tuatha d Danaan

Who never die

Eternal spirit the real deal

Fey folk from that Emerald Isle Of song

Who knows where they came from

Did they grow out of the land

Did they leave for Western Isles

Were they really men

What's for sure they were faerie stock

The Dragon Clan to take one look

You could tell it at a glance

As you might well see they're strain today

Quite how it splices

I'm not sure

But there were goings to and fro

And inticements between male and female

Across continents that drew lovers to walk

Or with pack animals they didn't baulk

For need of an air ticket

They went just the free spirits they were

Following love to countries far

Meeting kin with different skin

Loving her and loving him

A true love not political

With motives very far

From grabbing what the other's got

With rulers ruling as despots

For sure there is alot

Of this kind of thing

Done freely in the name of some King

But whose King was it they servedI ask you now do we have the nerve

To remember Gwyn ab Nudd

In his crystalline cave ruling from beneath

Fey King son of Nudd "Silverhand" Nodens

Or Artur our hero he Dragon-Pen

Pendragon Clan of the Brittanic Isles

Descendants selected by Druidic Elders

Kept it all together for a while

King Cymbeline of the House of Camu

Through to Cadwaladr of Gwynedd true

Lineage was held in open court

Before christian persecution brought

The Fey to a time more hidden indeed

Though they persisted in high circles it seems

The Grail Dynasty of Judea

Was not winning the people through fear

King David and Soloman with songs and the harp

Kept the people enchanted their senses sharp

To subtle culture to noble truth

Their Royal blood holds the proof

In memory of their glorious reign

Of sons Ham Japhet and Tubal Cain

Who linked to other Dragon strains

From Egypt's crocodile cult named

Sobek Queen Sobek Nefru

Between her and Maelasanu

Or Melusine of Northumbria from

The Angevin House of Vere of Anjou

As if that means more to you

They linked the chain that does not repress

Queens of the original fey race

Founding Mothers East and West

Linked the blood that knows the best

The Unity of all this hallowed Earth

This is the right of faerie birth

This was the lineage on one side

The other just as anchient

Was from the origin in Gypsy-land

Which brings me round to Rameses 2

Stood star-mirrored before Cheops

The pyramids three

Aligned with the Orion Belt

Stars that we see

Nile culture we have arrived at

The age of the Pharaohs

Eye of Horus with heavy kohl

Such a magnificent vast magic world

Where serpent power crystals are coiled

Temples made of coloured glass

Initiations through which to pass

Thoth of libraries scribes and word

Speaks the truth and weighs the souls

Against the feather on the scales

Sacred baboons watch and tithe the result

That Ibis-head Thoth has dilligently judged

While juror vulture assessors eagerly await their

Meal of blood from evil Wraiths

Unfavoured in the balance

So it was at the Temple of Esna

Where Ma-at Truth Goddess

Was she who would recieve

Those who had not wronged

Too bad it seems

Just as Ammut-Apophis

Hyena-Hippo-Crocodile God

Ate the souls and consigned wicked ones

To eternal hell

Just as well

The priest scribes like Ani Hunefer and Nekmertuwef

Actually knew more than the King

And so like the bards of another time

They could depose him

Like King Khufu and his scribe Djedi Whom he kept on his toes

Most of the time didn't he

And from this cult the faerie line

At Tuna el Gebel near Petosiris's tomb

Thousands of mummified baboons attest

To the fey baby boom it was began

And at 8 roaded Khemnu where Thoth had a girl

The consort Nehmataway

Let in the incarnations of fey

Channel in to the world in the Dog Star Days

And from this cult the faerie line

Was first on this side defined

Fathered Mothered

And formally founded for all time

The Egyptian/Phoenician

Fey descent Dynasty Divine Intervention fractilator facilitators

For faerie seed

The need of the Earth

All it's shining worth

Not to be lost

Not at any cost

A truth bloodline

Another kind

To the murderous userpers

In a deceptive guise

But the lineage fine

Is somewhat sublime

And often for safety

Has seemed to hide

More like been obscured

By something more cruel

But it's all see thru

Political fools

Forced to comply

With a governance not

Of the highest notch

Basically a botch job

A hack and slay campaign

A succession of bloody reigns

Seemingly the same

Fighting wars

Making the cause

For more

Of the same insane

Profanity!!

It is a line that has strayed from the truth

For I can tell there was a day

Once when the way

Was laid on the land

'Twixt cross and barrow the straight track spanned

Of etheric lazer-like pulse in a line

Conscious connected

As within the Self so elsewhere found

The lines lay straight

True to Sun and Moon

Now laying in wait

To again remember the old tune

Of a time when perpetual choir

Sung enchantment for governance higher

A raised vibration held up

By monks at acu-points

In the great circles around White Leaf Oak

And Saffron Waldon like spokes

They took it in turns to chant I don't joke

Tuned in the people to a frequency

That quite simply caused harmony to be

Another world view exists now

Amid techno-cultures constant row

Has done for that sublime science

Exept where defiance

Such as that which I do

Can recall somehow the other world view

A view that envelopes

All that has developed

Even of this so-called progress and what it costs you

You know what those clever pixies used to do?

They made labyrinthes that map the self

-I count that as something that helps-

Even the Minotaur within

Can be matter for a grin

These mazes are made

The true self to display

From Fayyum to Crete to the Tor's terraced sides

You bet therein a portion of Grail resides

For it was that original blood that made these puzzle lairs

Don't you think that it's unfair

That others came along and put on the mantle

All good dismantled doesn't that rankle

The faerie ranks were not preturbed

But something was coming that was even worse

And that was the work of the Roman Catholic Church

Originally set up in A.D. 44

By Constantine 1 Holy Roman Emperor

This was the name of the Godman

Who one time had a dream in form

Of a battle plan

To fight under the sign of the cross

So began his Empire’s people to accost

And converted to Christendom the whole lot

Went forth and slaughtered in the name of Christ

It was the first time it wasn’t very nice

Such a conversion job was so complete

With built in state approval so neat

Over the years this sort of thing grew

Now it was a most fashionable thing to do

With the name of Jesus to convert you to

This new religion of the cross

And if they couldn't get this across

Then it was a sorry loss

Of life and limb

Or wife and children

Of normal people caught between

The empire and the church machine

Soldiers searched for dissidents

Through centuries growing persecution

Raped and pillaged burned and maimed

In Son of God Jesus's Holy Name

Branded this new religion

On the poor of the world

Such a sorry sorry game...

In England where the true heart lay

Since Joseph of Arimathea came this way

Uncorrupted and with Jesus made

The first wattle church at Glastonbury

Folk understood their Levantine teachings

After all it was with druids they had been speaking

And you could say they were pleased

To greet the age of Pisces

But what later came to be

Was down right evil trickery

Their pure motive was undermined

By warlords and the pious kind

Who contrived to use the new holy creed

To satisfy their power crazed greed

Authority got on the faith bandwagon

And wholesale culled that anchient dragon

All Giants as well they eradicated

Till all memories of Albion dissipated

And dedicated themselves instead to the Great God War

Made the Crusades a whole lot more

Converting what they termed infidel pagan jew or heathen

To the new cult of bible believing

It sorted out the heretics

Ran rout all the peace-niks

Messed it up good and proper

Then they took out the Mother

Father Son and Holy Ghost

Where now the Matron loved the Most

Vaigued out with several Marys

One a prostitute

Cut out of it like the pagan crone Ceredwin

The old religion was abused and done in

The faerie line had been forgot

Fought over exiled feared dead or lost

And imposters in their place instead

Ruling by oppression

Lies and fraud

Aided by high governmental laws

Was to be deplored by those of faerie genes

Yet they continued behind the scenes

To mingle in the Courts

And hold positions such as they aught

Where it counts say with the druids

Or classy witches or the famille Languedoc

Working in a world by fascists ran

Deplored by fey because it is so removed

To the gardens that they were used to

And yes to know perhaps again

For they have got intoConstantine's son's son's brain

And that's a story being spun

Let's make it there for everyone

So for a while the Societas Draconis

Carried on pseudo-Royally taking the piss

With no patron Saint but abadge he permits

A red cross in a circle the Rosi Crusis

Twenty three nobles with a Vampire his wife

The Hungarian Pretender was living the life

And he lived it long and he lived it bad

Till he with highest honours duly was clad

Such a dazzling lineage was born for priviledge

And Pope Eugene IV welcomed him to the fold

Such a primer offender he had enrolled

Sanctified in so Holy a Name

So as to continue the killing game

The witch hunts scourged

Ducked burnt and murdered

Any with a hint of a craft not Christian

In a trans-european inquisition

All remnant of faerie

Was hunted and questioned

Brainwashed and imprisoned

Scorned with derision

Outlawed and ridden

From the land so the state hoped

But it just went to ground

With appearance turned round

Continuing in corners

Without too much sound

For centuries in fact

'Cos you can't stamp it out

What grows deep beneath

The Earth has bequeathed

It's children with fastidiousness

And century by century

They worked a way out of the mess

But just for a while

Let us consider the Lady of Carlisle

With family closely related to Melusine

And the House of Anjou

Through the Elven blooded Sailor

Phillip whose love was so true

Two suitors of note she had

This Lady Emily of Carlisle

The Sailor and a Soldier

Of High rank and file

Whose ardour was comparable to

A great blazing fire

The two of them came before Emily straight

Spoke of their love did not hestitate

Each said their love was the greatest of course

But Emily said "Get on your horse"

She rode for three days

With these two lusty men

Till they came up outside the Lion’s Den

He shall have me who gets this if he can

And into the cave she flings her fan

The soldier he falters saying his love is great

But he was late for an appointment and so he left

The Sailor said nothing but brought her fan back

She flung herself on and that is a fact

Such Love that Dares

Such Love to Trust

Is Evidence sure

Of Faerie Lust

Conceived immaculate

Between the Worlds

When did it first occur

Beyond the North Wind

There were lands

Where descendants of the Danaan

Faerie line of the Western Sidhe

Dragon Kings of Anu

Of Hyperboria the Hesperides

To Hibernia the Emerald Isle where the Lea Fal

Stone cries out when touched by the true King

Bringing out the light truth ringing

From where hidden in some mortal breast

It seems that theStone knew best

Which key to governace felt correct

By a communion with union

For all walks and sorts

Within enchantment caught

When of such Oneness we are taught

With all things living

All things dead

With the lovely fragile earth that feeds

All plants animals creatures creeds

That here on earth have birthed it seems

And praise to those wonderous reptilian Queens

Without whom we would never have been

Founders of dynastic lines

From far before recorded times

Through Scytian Scota that Dragon Princess

With Maelusina the Line it was blessed

She formally founded the Dragon Clan true

Such a line remembered the oneness

Inherant in every prayer

Penetrating every layer

It formed the format for governance fey

Through enchantment incanted with old mystic lays

Enrapturing folk not leading astray

But tuning to frequency Radio Sidhe

Encircling the spheres with that Love shining through

Ley creating site to site

Linking anchient me and you

Working with the Dreamtime

And singing on the Dreamline

Using it to walk through fears

This old time music of the Sphere’s

Piercing through the dull mind

Undoing the Doldrums

Holding recourse to the Law

Held by careful royal Claws

Whose grasp is unlike those of the Law that presently stands

Like that dragon in the middle of the Strand

No, it is that venerable mystical Angevine beast

Whose holy inspiring flames have not ceased

To influence well from behind the scenes

Causing cultures aloft upon Dragon’s mesmerizing wing

To be bourne in long forgotten age

Of which I’ll remind because I feel it sage

To take us back from where we begun

But I don’t think I can role call everyone

Or exactly who begat who. It’s lost it’s gone

Geoffrey of Monmouth had access to anchient tracts written down

And gave us his bardically splendid history of all British crowns

But these tracts are not traceable

So we must assume it somewhat fanciful

But hats off to him anyway for having a go

In referring to these old Kings

One might wonder what it brings

To discourse on the faerie kind

Were not those Monarchs bang out of line

Killing to claim the throne from fear

Holding only power dear

It’s the impression one can get from these guys yet

To tar them all with the same brush is too much

Some were free thinkers to boot

Some made rhyme and some played the harp or lute

Some such sovereigns did their best and ruled fairly fair

Most of course they just didn’t care

Yet the stories of common people

Would be just as much a tale

For sure as day the Sovereign Law

They might well regale

For sure the Sovereign statutes

Are not open for dispute

Does it taste much like oppression

And make you feel minute

Compared to that Draconic Law

I did make mention of it’s flaw

For even though these

Royal Pretenders have ruled since time out of mind

It doesn’t mean that they can or will do forever and all time

Yet whether their effect was wicked or benign

It was felt and that said

Felt all the time

Those Regal ruling Royals of some or other line

Notice how that strain of beneficial faeridom blood

Has flowed often in such terrible flood

When those Kings have decided it so

But they could never tax to death that ever living soul

Of the original and mystical

Tuatha de Danaan

Bold beyond fear

Always near

None of this us and them

We’re all in this together though not everybody knows

At least wicked oppressors keep you up on your toes

So such a tale involving kings will I balance

A little steamed up with fey romance

Reflecting all the world of everybody told

Feudal Peasants who till the Earth

Revolting for bread’s worth

I shall be hinting

A trace of faerie seed glinting

Our need of seed

To get us through times unprecidented

In a world that’s gone demented

But for now I’m staying before history

In Irish myth and mystery

When legendary Conn his crown so publically claimed

When he touched the stone it King he named

To a pure white mare he was led

And upon that Mare he was duly spread

Till such sport as it was that they made

Conn’s Kingly credentials were well and truly displayed

Before the villagers from all around the land

Gathered for a performance of such Royal Command

The rain fell down the people left

Leaving just the Mare and Conn who wept

That pure white mare got up and changed

Into Danu of the Daanan became

This gave Conn a considerable boost

She was more the kind of lover he’d choose

Danu informed him of the duties of Kings

Of Bran Finn Mc Cool and Cu Chullain Of Emain Macha and the

Warrior Northern tribes

Of love war and of people and of ruling their lives

She spoke of Ceridwen and her remarkable pot

That cauldron of Annwn where the whole lot

Of them Kings could be cast

In four circles deepening where they would fall fast

Through the worldly forms of Abred harsh

To Gwynfed in heaven’s pure light to bask

So to Ceugant where the creators are

It’s a long way back if got this far

Now the cauldron is bubbling all is dark mist

Danu departs leaving Conn with a kiss

Suddenly all this is left behind

And what is this that he finds

In a spinning castle of towers he suddenly is sat

And notices this blue robed poet cat

It is Taliesin Shining Brow in Caer Sidid singing

He that bard chanting a tale to explain

Telling of oneGoddess Macha from a place called Emain

Whose Goddess name had been taken in vane

By boast of a foolish mortal husband

Too boozed to be urbane

Thought not what his words would exact

In the least

When he claimed at feast

That she could beat

The chariots of their noble King

For once said at court it had to be done

Macha bore two children in her womb

She won the race but he children died

And mourning their she openly cries

On the men of Ulster she places a curse

For these warriors elite and full brave

It was the worst

To loose all their strength and yes by my leave

They couldn’t even pick up a cabbage leaf

This set their military aspirations back

The army now had a somewhat lack

Of warriors weakened and off their war

Unable to defend their huge fortress walls

To what primal power do I owe my dues?

‘Tis the power of the Mystic Tri-Goddess so true

Of the Maiden Mother Crone

Modern times it little knows

Yet She was the original theme of poetry

Her True Poets opening for to see

The Matrix (not the celluloid one)

That links us up where we come from

Kings and Queens and Bards in People

From the place where all is equal

And who, tho’ wars now rend us apart

Is still the lone subject of this art

Bequeather of Kings

Behind all things

Enveloping all in her charms

Of ice and fire. Be alarmed!

Knower of men's minds

Bestower well inclined

To nurture and to chide

Hear

Her call inside

Your ear

No fear

Is so opaque to obscure her

There is no cure for her

She will get you eventually

Though you reject her

Have no names for her

Or only those to revile

She all the while

Made you

With some

Horn-led consort

Tangled and met

Till this world was set

Now you can’t forget

She spoke in the ears of those Kings of old

And so this story will unfold

One Bran of whom you have heard

Once set sail to that other world

Close to this one though far away

A stulwart crew there made their way

And met Mananan Ocean God

Tending all his fishy flocks

In his chariot of two wheels

He said he drove through grassy fields

That Bran would as the sea perceive

But it wasn’t make believe

He told Bran that land lay further

Towards the world’s edge where

The Isle of Women surely lay

So Bran reached it after some days

And spent time there out of mind

Where one day on some bank lying

The Mother spoke into his ear

‘It was I who enticed you here

If you would be a wise ruler

It’s best not to act a fool yeah

Keep in touch at all times

Listen to such bardic rhymes

That tell of laws that flow mystic

It wouldn’t do if you missed it

From this peaceful Isle your precepts take

Please do not make a mistake’

Now have I got it jumbled up?

As when Artur quested for the cup

That mighty cauldron holy grail

Another quest of setting sail

To Annwn this time this thing to find

To four castles they were determined

Yet four times they quested four time returned

Only seven each time lived and learned

This grail was not an easy prize

And they paid for it with their lives

These are levels of the Underworld

Such as that castle that twirls

Cair Sidin where Taliesin sits

Recounting tales-surprised at this?

This is the Castle of Spirals where Gwyr was chained

So it is his sorrow in tale remains

Next from the Castle of Revels exept seven none returned

To Castle of Rulers save seven none lived and learned

The Glass Castle of Treasures

Claimed all pleasures

It’s swarming sentinels slew till all but seven remained

Yet so it is we know their names

Men of no courage merit no praise

And Arthur’s quest is a well known lay

For the cauldron is warmed by virgins nine

Encircled with pearls and sorcelled with rhyme

Such quest for a King was a goodly thing

Yet they could not it from Annwn bring

Now I cannot rightly applaud the King’s virtues

If you met them they might well hurt you

The Celtic race loved war and killing

It is what they found the most fulfilling

In life where honour was a death bravely met

This ‘Peace not War’ hadn’t caught on quite yet

It was what they knew this warrior lot

Trained to be so straight from the cot

Fearful of gods who smote from the sky

They stuck to their meade and didn’t ask why

But clever and caring also they were

With great homemade clothes and masses of hair

Up in braids with whiskers and beards

If they walked your High Street you would have thought’weird’

But give them their due, they came before you

We’re not here to judge unless you have

They delighted in war yet were high nomadic culture

Half hunter gatherer half agriculture

A balance perhaps donoting

Though I’m not promoting it

That war was somewhat how contained

As in nature’s animals who prey

Grown from nature’s selective ways

But coming were new days.

If we imagine the grande landmass of pangaea uncovered

Then some details we will discover

As to how tribes moved about

Exploring the receeding edge of the great glacier

And the expanding coast they were pioneers

Some were heading North some say from Troy

On the way holy dolmen deployed

These goidelic dialect tribes

Round 600B.C. arrived

In the much larger landmass of what was Europe

The ice though had receeded and given more landscope

Atlantis long gone

But they travelled by boat

Phoenicians are known as sea trading folk

And round to some islands they’d often float

From the ancient sea to the Hesperedies

Into the inlets and round to the towns

It was the best way around

Been goin on for hundreds of years

Was going on still at the time of Christ

Though then by me the times turned not nice

But I’ll tell of one Joseph of Arimethea

Who in AD44 struck the Thorn staff right here

On Wearyall Hill

Where that Thorn stands still

He’d come before oh yes several times

From Palestine once with his nephew

Christ

Sailing with the fine metal merchants up the Bristol channel

Founding next the first wattle chapel

In Glass Isle Glastonbury

For sure as the Lord was at Priddy

He opened the age of Pisces

Hoping all would as christ see

And healing and dialogue offer

If you would prefer

To live as a simple chrestian man

The Druids they knew him

The zodiac drew him

The age it exploded in war and in strife

Yet note that each Christmas the Thorn blossoms quicken

Unlike the Thorn that comes from that way

Yet bear in mind the times

Romans liked their lines

Square villas they were killers

They conquered all over

And paved such straight roads

That fore-folk had made of their ways a going

And marched vast armies to the ends of the earth

A sucession of Caesars many of them mad

Made great use of the tax they could have

In the end overshot but that’s how it goes

But they’d romanised everywhere and then they did go

Leaving ungoverned Anglophiles and picture faced picts

Wondering now how the picture would fit

Bashing each other till Saxons an Jutes and Vikings

Came from all Angles to the Isle of the Angles

Now the Anglo-Saxon Chronical was written

By monks who at the time were living

Recording annual events and stuff

Vortigen crops up as a chief of great fame

Though maybe it is a generic name

For a warlord in the cant of that time

Which was A.D.430ish we can surmise

Arthur was 5th century if he was at all

Though whether called King is debateable

He rallied against the invaders with sucess

Got laid and had stress

These themes of Kings that I here begin

Is a partial historic obsession, I put it in

Because I’m following a track

By looking back

See where it comes from

Where it goes to

Of how people ruled

And what we can do

To rule our own lives

So to survive

In this day and age

Are the leaders so sage?

Plato idealised the Philosopher Kings

Guardians whose long education would bring

Leadership pure from their perfected minds

A temperament tempered with wisdom refined

Who studied stars wind sea and season

To sail ship-city Kallipolis with reason

Yet what of the wisdom of the common little folk

Was it not the King’s that their Queen invoked?

I spoke of a line

A lineage fine

How was it defined

If you ask me I’m inclined

To point out the fey

And in this way

We will all decide

Kings and Queens well perhaps they’ve got it

But as we know they tend to the despotic

But some had poise as we shall find out

They weren’t all Right Royal Louts

Bran appears in both Ireland and Wales

And of course features in many a tale

He sailed over to England

His head is here still

Prophesying and dreaming

Beneath Tower Hill

Where the Ravens are cawing

Keeping England itself

Where our taxes appaling

Keep the rich with the wealth

‘Render unto Caesar’ we have heard it before

Uniting all Prydain by giving it war

Yes there were Druids

Some of them Lords

Know that they governed

With mystic wards

Warrior-menders

Before Roman time

The druids remember

They passed the law down

In great schools of learning

Bards were put to task

The beth-luis-nion

Alfa-bet to grasp

A thirteen moon calender

Well did they comprehend

Ancestrally aquainted

Tribal Memory they retained

They knew genetic stories

Of who and how begun

They also knew the science

Of the turning of the sun

They knew when solstice and equinox

Time it would arrive

They kept the Celtic memory banks

Very much alive

Then Kings could not rule a life

Without approval of a wife

A Queen must authorise a King

Before his reign it could begin

Ceremonial acts did mark

Summer winter light and dark

Letters took from twigs on tree

Bard Ovate and Druidry

Three it is a holy trine

Oak and Ash and Thorn. Sublime

Four times seasons turning round

Intoning of the holy sound

All over Europe did they live

Guiding law they had to give

There is talk of sacrifice

Blood on altars not so nice

Bear in mind the length of time

Druids had kept up their rhymes

Had they placed the megalith

Who can really answer this

For sacrifice they were not made

Druids by then in retrograde

Romans came and ran them rout

Cared not what they were about.

The last stronghold of Druidry

At Anglesea was held

When Emperor Suetonius said

To smash those stupid Celts

The legionaires were frightened

As they stood upon the beach

With women dashing through their ranks

And gnashing of their teeth

With flaming brands waved in their hands

Like dread haired banshees on the sand

Druids raised up arms to pour

Improcations on all their war

At first the troops froze at this sight

But General Paulinius rallied them outright

‘Quail not at frenzied females

You are the Emperor's men

Raise your standards strike hard now

Don't be disquieted by their row’

So they smote resistance temples glade

I suspect it was a road they made

So ended much that's gone for good

Roman ambition obviously would

They wrapped the fortress

In a red shroud of flames

Who can now remember their names

At Anglesea the druids were dead

Into the sea their memory bled

In their wake the Romans left quite a mess

And here starts the Legend of Arthur no less

He history and myth a full potent blend

Could be Britain a little he did mend

Roman-tisised to the Hilt

Yet last seen floating to Avalon

Like Bran his prescence lives on

Is not far away

Some might say

Now from this point and without delay

I shall do a little resume

Of what Kings we have had

In these English like parts

Perchance to percieve their faults and their arts

It’s all very rough but I don’t care a jot

There’s bits missing and it has no plot

In the run up to Artur according to Geoffrey

Things had started with Brutus from Troy

With the phoenix flames

Of his city he came

100 years after it’s terrible fall

Alighting at Totnes to be our first royal

His name some say is the Brut in Brit

Though many would not agree to it

After some scuffles so Britain began

Though Europe too descends from this man

Also eponymous was the next one Locrinus

Who lodged it as Logres

Which is also a name

I’m sure there are many

Would make that claim

Now I’ll run through quite quick

Some names I think stick

Like Maddan Mempricius

Bladud and Leir

The Celt Queen Cordelia

King Cymbeline

Ferrex and Porrex

Belinus Brennius

Oenus and Cap

Eldol Redon

Pir Heli and Lud

Some they were people

Some they were God

Arviragus the Welsh was he who gave hides

To Joseph when he sailed to these Isles

Then the Romans came west

To take all the rest

We had Severus Geta

Allectus and Coel

Constantine I, II and his son

Look though for yourself

I’ve not named everyone

Vortigern Vortimer

Aurelius Ambrosius

All came in their time

To rule and annoy us

Till Artur Pendragon

Hacked out the line

Though he did not seem like

Quite the faerie kind

But we all know his son

Artur the famous

But now to the throne

There were so many claimers

Kings of Wales and Scotland

Wessex and Mercia

I wont get the story too confused here

Vortiporus and Malgo

Cadvan and Cadwallo

Keredic Conanus and

Cadwallader of Gwynedd

All of them rulers all of them dead

At this point in about A.D.70

The Danes to the east were getting weighty

And chose to take on the Angular Isle

So they brought their boats with horses inside

Tried several times to oust settled tribes

So to Brut/Brit/Logres that Angle Isle

Viking wing helmets came and were vile

Saxons more southerly laid in as well

Such invaders were not placatable

Used Jute mercinaries who were obstinatly themselves

But up for a ruck they all made merry hell

Until after sucessive wars engaged

We ended up talking the Anglo-Saxon language

In this mellee Artur came to light

He surely put up a pretty good fight

And went marauding abroad

As well it is thought

A whole list of battles were progressivly fought

But live by the sword so die by the sword

Till there are only lost memories a fragment of words

Of what blood was lost all on the green sward

Britain was a mass of Kingdoms

For many Kings renowned

That is until the Lion Ecbert showed up

‘Bretwelda’sole ruling crown

Offa King of Mercia had exiled him one day

Sent Ecgbert to the court of Charlemaine

Exiled all the way to France

Yet he got his second chance

Was recognised on his return

As the right and truthful one

He took on the Mercians

And Ellendun battle won

When North Humbrians accepted him

Britain’s first King he’d become

Ecgbert’s son was Aethelwulf

Who had been sub-King of Kent

In 839 he assumed the throne

As his father meant

Viking raids were kicking off bad

Aethelwulf fought back with what strength he had

Yet a religious and a caring man generous it seems

With wife Osburga begat five sons

And so worked out some means

That the eldest one would suceed him

Without sibling rival claims

But son Aethelbald was bad

And while dad pilgrimaged to Rome

He plotted fouly on him

And so usurped the throne

Yet this supremacy was short-lived

He died after years two

And Aethelbert the eldest son

Got his Royal dues

Which was defending Winchester

Where his Royal seat sat

Enduring endless Viking raids

But he truly sent them back

Son Aethelred was next in line

A loving holy man

Fought with his little brother Alfred

As second in command

Beating Bagseg and Halfden Danelords

At the battle of Ashdown

That youngest son of Aethelwulf

Became Alfred the Great

But not before he’d gone to ground

And burnt those silly cakes

That was down in Somerset

In the marsh at Athelney

On the run from Guthorm

Recovering sufficiently

To beat those Danes at Eddington

Yet with them made a pact

That Guthorm became a christian

And he sign a contract

Giving Danes East Anglia bits of Mercia too

This was called the Danelaw

There’s diplomacy for you

Yet Alfred was not just a fighting man

He was a scholar the records tell

He codified the law, prayed much

And loved the arts as well

Translated Latin to the vernacular

So folk could more readily read

Asser his scribe and councillor

Can provide the work you need

To find out more about this

Truly great and noble King

Buried ‘neath Winchester’s trees

Where cathedral bells do ring

Alfred’s heir Was Edward the Elder

And he won back the Danelaw complete

His son was crowned on the King’s Stone at Kingston

Welsh Scots and Vikings at Brunanburh did defeat

That son was Aethelstan who supported the monastries

Where at Malmesbury Abbey his effigy sleeps

Edmund the first was half-brother to Stan

This son of Edward fought the North Humberians

He gave these lands to the Scottish King Malcolm

But was killed Gloucester way by a robber man

Next Eadred of Wessex was Lord overall

Of Northumbria Mercia and the Danelaw

He was so angered by Norse Erik Bloodaxe

Who had installed himself King up at York

Eadred he went and ravaged those Vikings

North of the Humber yet the locals were cool

They expelled Erik for being too bloody

Eadred prayed thanks to God and continued his rule

He died young. He’d always suffered from pains

And also had no children to after him reign

So Eadwig the eldest of the line of Wessex

Was elected therefore the throne to claim

He fell foul of the bishop Dunstan

For seeing a girl during office hours

Though he wed this Aelgifu quite rightly

He died at twenty of a family scourge

Edgar of Mercia and Northumbria

Was brother to Eadwig so got Wessex as well

Peaceful and prosperous his reign was long it was

All other Kings were to him submittal

He revived the church brought back Dunstan from exile

Made him Archbishop his close councillor as well

However his successor his son only twelve at the time

Was murdered by his half-brother’s family claim

So Edward the Martyr at Corfe got his name

This half-brother Aethelred was made Kingv at ten years

Poor council plagued Aethelred so named the Unready

He gave much in Danegeld to keep Vikings tame

But they kept on raiding in spite of the money

He fled to Normandy but was brought back again

Edmund his son was nicknamed the Ironside

He defeated the Danes at Oxford in Kent

But where London chose Edmund

Southampton would have Canute

Ed was routed in Essex by those Viking men

A peace treaty was drawn up where Edmund kept Essex

While Canute got North Humber and Mercia too

Whoever lived longest would have the whole lot of it

But Edmund died quite quick it’s true

The Dane Sven Forkbeard

Deposed his father

Harald Bluetooth Gormsson

To become Denmark's King in 985

He came with Knut his son

Attacking Aethelred's England

Delighting in the Danegold

It was not all they came for

Not all they could provide

As I have said Aethelred fled

And Sven Forkbeard ruled instead

He claimed the throne for five weeks

And then expired was dead

Now at this his son Knut

Went back to Denmark spooked

But gathered forces

To return once again

This was to challenge Edmund

But as I said Ed's death came

And with his Kingship

Knut did for Wessex claims

He took a mistress in Aelgifu

And had a son Harald Harefoot

But then he took a wife

And made another life

He called this boy Hardicanute

Knut's reign was strong and justly based

Secured England from invasion

He was a friend of the church

The people must have liked him best yeah

For he also lies buried at Winchester

Harald Harefoot was made a Regent

And then became a King

He was by rights slipped in the door

His half-brother not around to score

Hardicanute was by then King of Denmark

But at cost for England was to embark

But Harefoot died and Hardi went and took the crown

You can imagine what next went down

Hardicanute was cross because he was the rightful heir

And it cost him lots of bother to get there

So he imposed a 'fleet tax' on the people

To pay for his steep endeavour

Was much disliked soon died and no one cared

Meanwhile

The eldest son of Wessex

Was still in Normandy

Where Aethelred and Emma

Had fled from their duties

This son was Edward who returned

When King Knut was dead

Knut had placed three Wessex Earls

To rule the provinces

These were Leofric Lady Godiva's man

Earl Siward and Godwin dread

Edward used this influence

Now Hardicanute was dead

Through Godwin he had the throne clinched

And his daughter Edith wed

But if this was all looking good

I'd have to take back what I've said

When Edward made up his court

Things did not go down well

Too many of them were Norman friends

Which to a Saxon smells

Godwin and son Harold

Led the anti-Norman coup

Edward snubbed the Godwin's

Including his own wife too

Confining her inside

The monastry at Wherwell

Yet none of this was English sense

As you probably can tell

Fraternising with Normans

Made Earl Godwin full annoyed

Especially when Roberte Champarte

As Archbishop was employed

The Earl rebelled but was expelled

But people felt the lack

Not wanting derision

Edward made revision

And duly let him back

West-Minster Cathedral

Was made at his behest

There was no decision with succession

But soon would come the test

Edward chose Harold Godwin-son

Not his grandson Aetheling

But 1066 was coming up

And that changed everything

Well yo might be wondering at this time

What has happened to this tale of faerie line

Is Pok making some kind of digression

Do we really need this history lesson?

What indeed has happened to the little people

See their anchient grove now sports a steeple

Where are those great earth giants of old?

Slain by Brutus when he first came so bold

For centuries now the line was crushed down

Yet I would not say it was fully out

But hidden in corners pr'haps nursing some wounds

With all this fighting where was the time

To contemplate nature be with the divine

You'll have noticed how some of these Kings were devout

One wonders what they were praying about

And things seem sometimes what they ain't

Such as Edward the Confessor being a saint

What history books serve to preserve

Is not always with the truth concerned

Media of the church and state

Put in place to regulate

Because the system lost it's soul

Taking on a monstrous role

Faerie lines were left behind

Yet read on see the still entwined

William the first son of Robert Duke of Normandy

Born at Falaise at eight he gained the Duchy

He was young with revolts at his door

It took some time his rule to secure

Fancying the English Kingship

He alledged that Edward had felt kinship

This and a promise extorted from Harold

Was what he the English told so bold

They denied him the succesion

He prepared for invasion

Landing soon at Pevensea

He got well dug in at Hastings

While Harold was up North

Fighting Vikings

The decisive battle at Senlac bridge

Was Hastings 1066 of course

So the Norman Conquest it began

With Harold defeated and killed

Edgar Aethling opposed him yet stilled

Amid riots and death and fire burnt homes

William the First took to the Throne

As martial law descended

The King to France absented

Though Bishop Odo of Bayeaux was left in charge

Revolt it featured large

But he stamped out these ingrates

With some violence of the state

And so it was that he went on

Most terrible it seems

Of these military campaigns

Was razing sixty miles up to the North

With not a village left

Just pestilence and death

So much fire and slaughter

Up beyond the Humber border

The land lay barren for fifty years

Famine and disease reigned

Yet Cheftain Hereward remained

Resisting long from a post in High Ely

People were stripped of their estates

Normans settled in their place

As William took on feudalship of all

He turned much country into deerparks

Introduced the curfew bell

Began the Tower of London

Battle Abbey built

Noteably he compiled the Domesday book

Everyone’s address at a look

So tax and tithe could be sorted out

It was a sign of the times

At war with sons in France

He burnt the town of Mantes

Was injured as his horse

Stumbled in the smoking ruins

He was carried to Rouen

And was buried at Caen

Having died at St. Gervas

Along the way

He left four sons

Of which two became Kings

Had several daughters as well

His wife’s name was Matilda

Daughter to Count Baldwin of Flanders

So the House of Normany was underway

Such a plight it must be

For this plain butchery

Done with the divine right of kings

With god on their side

And violence and lies

More violence and killing it brings

Yet let us still look

At these legitimate crooks

And bear one more line that Bob sings

'Steal a little and they'll

Put you inside a jail

Steal alot and they'll make you a king'

The way things were divided led to problems

When William the first at last did die

William Rufus the Red got all of England

Normandy was Robert’s piece of pie

Henry youngest of the children

Just got five thousand bits of silver

This led to avarice and arrows in the eye

William the Red was cross and blasphemous

He taxed the Church for all it was worth

With his cunning minister Ranulf Flambard

They foxed the barons of their land and wealth

Robert was favoured as King by those barons

But didn’t show up for the show down

They rebelled but were quelled by William’s men

Robert wanted out of town

So he pawned off his Dukedom to Will boy

And went off to Crusade the Holy Lands

What occurred next seems inevitable

Very low and underhand

William was hated by everyone

For he taxed all right up to the hilt

Of course there is contraversy surrounding

The way in which he was killed

An arrow in the eye whilst out hunting

With Henry in the retinue

Perhaps seems a little bit obvious

But nobody really knew

His brothers not around

Henry picked up the crown

Right there and then without delay

He promised good reforms

A hope of course forlorn

When Robert returned in some dismay

In the fight that then ensued

It was Robert that did loose

At the Castle Tinchebrai

Much to his dismay

He was put in prison till his dying day

Now Henry was quite clever

And excelled in the endeavour

Of monetary reform for the crown

Because he was so sharp

He was nick named the ‘beauclerc’

But his skills did not please the papistry

The church it had been rising

A thought perhaps not surprising

Considering monies it received

From rich and poor

Clergical appointments

Henry saw fit to sell

This holy privatising

Didn’t go down well

Pope Pascal the second

Threatened excommunication

Henry wouldn’t get to heaven

If he carried on like this

The King said he would change

But only his words rearranged

And went on much as he had before

In conferring sacred offices

He rescinded his authority

That is the Divine Right of Kings

The Pope reckoned him as secular

And subservient nothing more

An uneasy split from a greedy flaw

Henry’s only son was drowned

When the White Ship went down

So he had no male heir to make a King

His daughter by wife Adelaide

Was the only card that could be played

So he recalled her from Germany

And married her to Geoffrey of Anjou

A political move of course

Because with France he was at war

With King Louis the Fourth

He could placate or give defiance

With an Angevine alliance

But when Geoffrey wanted castles

He said no

So began a second stupid inbred war

This one with a his own brother in law

Henry died is it not sad

To have so much and end so bad

What is it with these Kings

See what it is their action brings

At war with relatives and sons

Cannot be the best one

The result of all this killing

Surely is not soul fulfilling

That there seemed no other way

No little hints of life more fey

Where oh where could it be

Such is our sad history

Emperess Matilda or Maude

Must have felt like a political pawn

She was married off to two men

Nowhere near her age

The first was Henry the Fourth

Of Germany this was

He was titled Holy Roman Emperor

When he died she had to go back

To England because it lacked

Any other heir to the Throne

To Geoffrey the Fourth Count of Maine and Anjou

Her father made her say I do

Though he was eleven years her junior

And they had to proceed with due care

His emblem featured the planta genesti

The Broom plant the Plantegenet crest see

Of which I would ask please take good note

It’s one of the reasons for which I wrote

They didn’t get on at first

But things got better not worse

She did three sons begat

All were pleased at that

Their names were Henry Geoff and Will

When her father met the children

He argued with their dad

And that is what led to their little war so sad

When her father died

She probably did cry

But soon she had to lead the country on

Yet usurping his oath

Her cousin Steven no sloth

Was quick to steal what was not his

Probably at this while

She was pregnant with child

In Anjou unable England to go

But as soon as she could

She made well and good

And a long civil war began did ensue

Robert of Gloucester helped Matilda

Or her cousin would have killed her

And at Beverston Castle they did win

This was up in Lincon

Steven they imprisoned him

The title Queen she did not wish

But ‘Lady of the English’

Or Empress but the Pope did not like that

But she was haughty and arrogant

Which the English couldn’t tank

Manners maketh man and woman it seems

Even if you are a King or a Queen

So her rule came to not much at all

Steven later got free

Causing Matilda to flee

Oxford in a white cape in the snow

She went to Wallingford

She’d made such escapes before

Such as disguised as a cadaver

In their Civil war palava

When she had to flee Devizes

A girl full of surprises

But Rob of Gloucester soon was dead

She had to go to France instead

Steve of course took the Throne and sat there

Yet Maude’s eldest showed up the natural heir

He had an army in tow

Which changed things so

The Treaty of Wallingford was written down

Stating who would wear the one Royal Crown

Matilda went back to her own court in Rouen

Maybe she just couldn’t stand it too long

When she died she was buried in the Cathedral

Here’s what is written if go there you will

‘Here lies the daughter mother and wife of Henry’

And as epitaphs go it’s much better than many

These Queens were hardcore they lived it to the max

Giving birth to dynasties and dealing with the cracks

In their hearts or in the courts that they had made

There lives had held much fear and joy also love and dismay

Is it a bit of dragon line coming from old Anjou

Does it stare us in the face as I tell their tale to you?

Born at le Mans to Matilda and Geoffrey

Was Henry first King of the Plantagenet line

He married Eleanor of Aquitaine

And added her empire to his own tracts of land

The barons were trying to overcome Royalty

So he tore down their castles and smashed the revolt

Now a Knight could still show his loyalty

He could pay scutage and be a vassal of court

Mercenaries were bought when Knights themselves off

Now this was what the armies were made of

There was much quelling of Normandy

Fighting with the Queen’s ex the King of France

After years of Norman style Trial by Combat

Trial by jury once more had a chance

Textbook common law it was invented

Which very much the church resented

Because their power was undermined

There was a dispute big time

Thomas a Becket was the church spokesman

Once friend to Henry and Chancellor

Also Archbishop in Canterbury Town

In the end he was killed by assassins

In his own Cathedral cut down

Henry had been angry but never wanted this

Four over eager knights did the job

Excommunicated but he got back in again

Was penanced by the church

Who set their terms to work

Henry pilgrimaged to Normandy

Was flogged nude in public in his own town Avranches

Henry had sired many sons on many women

And there were problems with what to give them

With the legitimate ones it was very hard

Henry wanted John for King yet Eleanor was for Richard

Geoffrey was jealous and went for his brothers

He failed and Richard attacked Henry

Who died somewhat miserable that Richard had the crown

Not here to underestimate that great lady of Europe

Let us spend some time with her now

Elaine of Aquitaine

Was quite a free spirit it is said

Which makes a difference with this lot

The Crusades were underway by this time

And bringing new ideas over from Palestine

One of these might well be this ‘Courtly Love’

Of which evidence is scant enough

The rules seem to change or to be ad lib

Coming from the troubadours trouvers and poets lips

Breathing words of this fantastic love

Into a court ready to receive it’s fancy

Fantasy to relieve the tedium perhaps

With adultery or near it

Of a most chivilrous kind

Of high action from high mind

Of humility and courtesy refined

A wild times methinks I would suppose

Henry had so many women Eleanor probably lost count

Her mood it was ambivulant which leaves me little doubt

She half recalled an echo in that trouver’s silken song

That entertained a notion of a world not quite so wrong

Or restrained behind the bars of court imposed marriage

Of love that could go on in someone else’s carriage

Realistic probably consid’ring what was going on

Eleanor had listened to those troubadours for long

I see her sat listening to them telling tales of Peredur

Enthralled by the romance of it always wanting more

Hearing of the graal that Parzifal once dreamed

All in a magic landscape with nothing as it seems

Robert de Boron wrote down the tales already old

In Eleanor’s lifetime at the court they were told

It popularised the tale in a new era reborn

For the stories had origins in pagan times before

When the woman was the one who permitted Kings to be

And marriage was not a thing of eternity

How they must have sighed

And laughed and corred and cried

Flirting with les yeux d’amour

It was considered love’s highest form

Eleanor allowed the Grail to shine

Revealed it to us for all time

She heard how Joseph brought it

After years of imprisonment

To Glastonbury where a church set up

First communion with the blessed cup

Resonating through the years

The Grail responds as we revere

Purification with this vase

Was needed if a court decays

The Grail was symbol of holy grace

For God to heal you face to face

Eleanor’s life was long and crazy

With five sons she wasn’t lazy

Imprisoned fifteen years

For plotting against Henry

She grew sick of his philandering

Wasn’t having any

Went all the way to Spain across the Pyranees

When she was in her seventies

Outlived most of her sons

She really was a one

There had been unrest for decades

Infidels from Persia causing outrage!

Constantine’s mother Helena was

Convinced she had found the original cross

At the site Golgotha where Jesus was crucified

This indeed was a place to be sanctified

So was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built

In Jerusalem pilgrims could travel as they willed

For Constantine protected the terrain

He had made everyone Christian

Yet about the time of Artur in the West

So Mohammed also did rise to the East

In 638 Islamic Champions took Jerusalem

Antioch and Alexandria where Caliphs became

Controllers who to begin with were tolerant

To the Christians they behaved most clement

It could have been a risky road for to tread

But Caliph Harun al-Rashid gave pilgrims a bed

With Muslim tolerance a hostel did provide

Yet the next Caliph was not so inclined

Hakim destroyed the church persecuted all non Muslims

Said that there was one God and it was him

Persian Seljuk Turks were invited to Bagdad

To all pull together and be big and bad

To become Sunnite Islamic Champions

And take on the Shi’ite rulers Egyptian

Byzantium fell (That’s Istambul now)

Asia minor was closely followed

Soon Jerusalem was taken by Turkish men

Into this new Seljuk Syria of Saracens

Alexius Comnenus took the Byzantiam throne

A cunning man I think he to be shows

By playing one Turk off on another

In power games so he didn’t have to bother

They made their own wars amongst themselves

This for Christian pilgrims didn’t bode well

The treacherous road was now much worse

With bandits and infidels interspersed

But it came to the attention of the church

Who of course could not leave them in the lurch

Something had to be done

Hearts and minds to be won

Inspired by St. Augustine’s idea

Of penitential warfare

Pope Gregory the Seventh

Said Knights could kill and still get to heaven

God would see that you were let in

By setting up a Holy war to absolve the sin

The plan was to reunite the Eastern Byzantium Christians

With the Roman Catholic Church end the schizm

Between Constantinople and Rome

You can see where it’s going

Rome spoke latin it was greek in the east

How can an Empire run with two main seats

Doctrinally aided slow strangulation

Led to a mutual excommunication

East and west disparate Christians

Could be united in a common mission

Brought together to save the Holy Land

From that horrid different Turkish man

That Pope pledged he would lead himself

An army of Western Knights to help

Byzantium, (by then Constantinople that is)

By force to get rid

Of those un christian hordes

That were so deplored

Soon to the council of Piacenza

The King Alexius sends a

Message that military aid is needed

This Pope Urban II conceeded

And comes up with this prime propogandum

Carefully worded murder absolution

‘Deus le volt’ cried the mesmerized crowd

‘God wills it’ Now they were allowed

Back along William the Conqueror

Had had to do penance for

All the raping and pillaging

Not forgetting all the killing

That made the Norman Conquests

But the Crusades brought out the best

Solution to all that belligerant testosterone

In need of soul guidance

Now violence was penance

If you slaughtered a Persian

And this new version

Brought them in like hordes

It was perfect the church needed a way

To say that violence was OK

Because the knights and kings were mad for it

The clergy could not call it interdit

There was too much to gain for one thing

But you couldn’t besmirch the Name and bring

Dishonour and property loss to the Christian Church and State

And those Turks were worse than Heathens for goodness sake

The point was that the church was split in its’ power base

Between Byzantium and Rome in this case

The Vatican must have felt rather insecure

By preaching they whipped up a Holy war

Which is now called the first Crusade

Let us survey the some of the mess they made

Crusaders converged in Constantinople

Answering the Authority of the Pope’s call

Alexius shipped them over the Strait of Bosporus

They had the Anatolian Mountains to cross

But first sieged Nicaea it was a Turk stronghold

But Alexius wouldn’t let them take full control

Dorylaeum they routed with a hard knock

Then over the crags in the push to Antioch

They split up different routes to take

Each a little Holy war would make

Once through Asia Minor they were in Palestine

And so began the pentinance divine

Edessa was captured by Baldwin of Boulonge

He had come through Armenia and purloined

A Princess from there, was made King

The people seemed to want him

This was the first Crusader State

Almost handed like on a plate

Antioch took nine months of siege

And bribery before it was siezed

All Turks were slain

And there were still lain

When the armies of Mosul came and besieged

The besiegers and diseases

From rank hacked corpses

Put pay to some and brought morale low

Just then it seemed that Christ himself did show

That Holy Lance that pierced his side

Beholden to Bishop Adhemar of Puy’s eyes

In the Church of Saint Peter

That first patriarch believer

That preached in Antioch

Right here on the spot and in that plot

As true as Matthews gospel was written hereabouts

It must have come into his mind and given him no doubt

It was a sign from God of divine will

That they must their Crusades fulfill

And bearing that Lance he rallied them all

Till they rode in tight charges from those castle walls

Routing again their objects of hate

And after much squabbling made Antioch State

Adhemar died and was sorely missed by the men

Raymond of Toulouse pushed on for Jerusalem

Through Tripola and Lebanon to the mountains

Where he met the Maronites who were Christians

Who had resisted the Turks

Then on with the work

Jerusalem stood strong and tall

They couldn’t breach it at all

Till a priest had a vision of Adhemar

Who said for the Crusaders hard

To atone by fasting going barefoot round the city

Which they did and pretty quickly

Had taken Jerusalem and killed all Muslims and Jews

It was their way it was what they knew

Ironically Urban died two weeks after that

Never hearing of his coup d’etat

Most Crusaders went home having done their bit

Leaving the problem of how to run it

Jerusalem’s Crusader state was made

And so it wouldn’t fade

Knights Hospitalier and Templar were founded

To protect Pilgrims and run around

Protecting all the Holy ground

From infidel of an other faith

Yet it wasn’t all one way

Solomon’s Temple was of eight

Sided shapes

This design the Templars did take

And place all over Europe

And in Malta too

This sacred geometric tool

I have heard it said that the Western crew

Knew not what high culture they had blown into

Raymond went and did Tripoli

Which made four states and lots of lolly

So the first crusade was complete

But there were to be repeats

Forty years later Turks took Edessa State

So Pope Eugenius III called the second Crusade

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux made it seem vogue

The Eastern Latin speaking states to go

To protect the land from the infidels once more

To fight for the Catholics another holy war

Kings Louis of France and Conrad of Germany

Soon set off upon the merry way

To meet in Acre then set off for Damascus

But they couldn’t get on and results were disasterous

Turks killed them all and they never arrived

And that was the end of the second try

Twenty years after that

A Sunni Kurdish warrior lad

Called Salah ed-Din had

Somehow brought all Moslem sects

Together to reject

The western intrusions

But not with total exclusion

He became Sultan of Egypt

Was naturally equipped

With diplomatic savvy

Such good relations had he

With Syrians Egyptians and Turks

That all prepared never to shirk

In clearing the Middle East

Of ruling Franks and their Priests

Yet his wisdom was in tolerance

Of religious observance
Surely it was better for him

Not to have his servants fighting

Amongst themselves

Might as well

Not hassle the Shi’ites but let them pray

Then all fight together on the battle day

Moslem and Christian respected him

That warrior that we call Saladin

Had more of an innate chivilary

That the Knights had ever dreamed to be
Around this time King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
Died young of leprosy gruesome

And Saladin much wanted the Crusader States

He went to the desert and stung Tripoli first

He goaded them out and they died of thirst

Acre was next

And then all the rest

Till Jerusalem

Was taken by Saladins’ men

Once he had victory

Ed-Din felt no need

To kill all his conquered

Like the Catholics did

I imagine them shuffling sheepishly home

Embarrassed at how the Crusades were going

Or maybe some stayed and learned quite a lot

Of what ways this strange eastern culture had got

Pope Gregory VIII called for the third crusade

To win back Jerusalem again

In Jesus’s holy name

There was King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany

Also King Phillip II of France

And it’s here where Richard the Lion Heart

Makes his dramatic entrance

Raping and pillaging in Normandy

Had made up most of his youthful days

Yet this was a man brought up with troubadours

And he wrote and sang a bit as well y’all

Especially when needing a ransom

Yes and of course he was handsome

Eager to crusade he sold much property

To finance his armies properly

Would have sold London if he had someone to buy

He once said that you know I don’t lie

He fell out with Phillip his friend on the route

Frederick drowned at Tarsus and then there were two

Who were not getting on and the Germans dispersed

Richard and Philip split up at first

Philip failed at Acre but Richard took Cyprus

Then they came together and were really quite decisive

Acre fell with no Saladin there to rally his men

Richard took the prisoners and just killed them

At which point Philip left saying he was ill

His French troops would follow French Richard still

But the chivalry of Saladin could only go so far

And he came with three times his foe in war

Yet Richard charged and soundly routed them

Then set off for Jaffa destination Jerusalem

But the French without their King would not follow through

So Richard captured Ascalon for something to do

Then set off again for Jerusalem but still could not win it

The Hospitalier and Templar Knights advised not to begin it

Saying even if it was took it could not be kept

A lesson today’s leaders would do well to recollect

Gazing from afar at the city Richard screens his eyes with a shield

Knowing he could not win it back or make the Persians yield

Yet he smashed Saladin at Jaffa with not that many men

Went on to claim a strip of coast but never Jerusalem

At which point they’d both had enough

For each other they were too tough

Saladin was sick of war

Richard wanted home once more

A peace treaty was writ and Richard kept his strip

Of Tyre to Jaffa plus Antioch and Tripoli

Muslems kept Jerusalem but Christian pilgrims could go there

Acre became the head crusader state and this is where

The third crusade ended, pious idealism as well

The crusades that were to come were pretty sick I tell

Forty years later Turks took Edessa State

So Pope Eugenius III called the second Crusade

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux made it seem vogue

The Eastern Latin speaking states to go

To protect the land from the infidels once more

To fight for the Catholics another holy war

Kings Louis of France and Conrad of Germany

Soon set off upon the merry way

To meet in Acre then set off for Damascus

But they couldn’t get on and results were disasterous

Turks killed them all and they never arrived

And that was the end of the second try

Twenty years after that

A Sunni Kurdish warrior lad

Called Salah ed-Din had

Somehow brought all Moslem sects

Together to reject

The western intrusions

But not with total exclusion

He became Sultan of Egypt

Was naturally equipped

With diplomatic savvy

Such good relations had he

With Syrians Egyptians and Turks

That all prepared never to shirk

In ridding the Middle East

Of ruling Popes and Priests

His wisdom was in tolerance

Of religious observance
Surely it was better for him

Not to have his servants fighting

Amongst themselves

Might as well

Not hassle the Shi’ites but let them pray

Then all fight together on the battle day

Moslem and Christian respected him

That warrior that we call Saladin

Had more of an innate chivilary

That the Knights had ever dreamed to be
Around this time King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
Died young of leprosy gruesome

And Saladin much wanted the Crusader States

He went to the desert and stung Tripoli first

He goaded them out and they died of thirst

Acre was next

And then all the rest

Till Jerusalem

Was taken by Saladins’ men

Once he had victory

Ed-Din felt no need

To kill all his conquered

Like the Catholics did

I imagine them shuffling sheepishly home

Embarrassed at how the Crusades were going

Or maybe some stayed and learned quite a lot

Of what ways this strange eastern culture had got

Pope Gregory VIII called for the third crusade

To win back Jerusalem again

In Jesus’s holy name

There was King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany

Also King Phillip II of France

And it’s here where Richard the Lion Heart

Makes his dramatic entrance

Raping and pillaging in Normandy

Had made up most of his youthful days

Yet this was a man brought up with troubadours

And he wrote and sang a bit as well y’all

Especially when needing a ransom

Yes and of course he was handsome

Eager to crusade he sold much property

To finance his armies properly

Would have sold London if he had someone to buy

He once said that you know I don’t lie

He fell out with Phillip his friend on the route

Frederick drowned at Tarsus and then there were two

Who were not getting on and the Germans dispersed

Richard and Philip split up at first

Philip failed at Acre but Richard took Cyprus

Then they came together and were really quite decisive

Acre fell with no Saladin there to rally his men

Richard took the prisoners and just killed them

At which point Philip left saying he was ill

His French troops would follow French Richard still

But the chivalry of Saladin could only go so far

And he came with three times his foe in war

Yet Richard charged and soundly routed them

Then set off for Jaffa destination Jerusalem

But the French without their King would not follow through

So Richard captured Ascalon for something to do

Then set off again for Jerusalem but still could not win it

The Hospitalier and Templar Knights advised not to begin it

Saying even if it was took it could not be kept

A lesson today’s leaders would do well to recollect

Gazing from afar at the city Richard screens his eyes with a shield

Knowing he could not win it back or make the Persians yield

Yet he smashed Saladin at Jaffa with not that many men

Went on to claim a strip of coast but never Jerusalem

At which point they’d both had enough

For each other they were too tough

Saladin was sick of war

Richard wanted home once more

For he’d heard John his own kin

Was up to a bit of throne nicking

A peace treaty was writ and Richard kept his strip

Of Tyre to Jaffa plus Antioch and Tripoli

Muslems kept Jerusalem but Christian pilgrims could go there

Acre became the head crusader state and this is where

The third crusade ended, pious idealism as well

The crusades that were to come were pretty sick I tell

These Knightly jaunts to nab the land

Of turban wearing Saracans

Was to reconcile Byzantium

And Roman Churches into one

That’s what Urban II desired

But it seemed the plan backfired

The fourth Crusade was the coffin nail

Hammered in to make it fail

This time Pope Innocent III

Commissioned armies to go by sea

From Venice through the Med to Egypt

But they never achieved it

The chief Magistrate Doge of Venice

Said Hungary is a menace

They’ve taken our town of Zara

We don’t want them to get farther

If you go and use your sword blades

To Egypt I will give you free passage

So Zara was seized and given the sack

When the Pope heard this his mood turned black

He excommunicated the Crusaders and the Doge as well

For actions like that they would go to hell

Whilst in Zara the Byzantium King Alexius came by

Who wanted to be restored, with father to his pride

Of position in Constantinople

He wondered if they were noble

Enough to help them get set up as Kings

If they did it was quid’s in

Of course they obliged

But tensions ran high

And though the two were made co-emperors

The Crusaders just kicked in the Royaldoors

It seemed that no cash was forthcoming

So they smashed up the Palace and running

Round town they sacked the whole place

It was humanities worst disgrace

Citizens were massacred

Surely every acre bled

Looting rioting rape and fire

This was not a purpose higher

This was Constantinople’s new Latin Empire!

Never yet has the church split been mended

Down the centuries so many men dead

Causes no healing possible to make

What kind of message shall we take?

Pope Innocent called for a fifth Crusade

But died before it got underway

This time they got to Egypt and took port Damietta

But striving to realise their long spun vendetta

Many died of disease in the Nile Delta

Then were trapped en route to Cairo where fate dealt a

Telling but not so cruel blow

A truce returning Damietta and they all could go!

These Muslims did not want to kill for the sake of it

They must have had another take on it

A culture much grander had made them more wise

They saw not just power and carnage with their eyes

And news of this was breaking through

Into thick western skulls, who give them their due

Had never seen nothing like the east at all

And so bits of this knowing would change the whole world

The Sixth was a curious turn of events

And ones which could lead to no regrets

Pope Gregory IX made the call this time

Emperor Fred of Germany said he would. Fine

But he never set sail and the Pope had enough

Excommunication he gave from heaven above

But Fred sailed to Palestine and drew not his sword

Achieving a great deal with diplomatic words

Yes for a span of ten years duration

Nazareth and Bethlehem and Jerusalem

Were given as Crusader nations

From further east the Mongol Tribes

On tiny quick ponies west were riding

Over Asia to Bagdad with Genghis Khan

Khwarismian Turks turned tail and ran

In their turn they did Jerusalem it was 1244

Pope Innocent IV called for Crusade once more

And Saint Louis IX King of France

Said he’d give it a chance

Getting to Egypt it was Damietta again

Which he quite easily claimed

But heading for Cairo he was captured on the way

To free up the army a huge ransom had to be paid

Near Nazareth Muslim Mamluks stamped out the Mongols

Captured the Christian towns Caesarea and Jaffa and on to

Antioch which they Muslim made

This little action led to the eighth crusade

Which Louis IX took on but died of disease

When they had only reached as far as Tunis

Edward of England a chivalrous prince

Of all this fighting wasn’t convinced

Thought it all corrupt and Louis was gone

Thought diplomacy better and wasn’t wrong

He brokered ten years of truce

With those Egyptian Mamluks

Waited for his wife Eleanor to give birth

Back in England was crowned Edward the first

That was the end of the Crusades to the Holy Land

What a mockery of God’s holy plan!

Two other crusades remain

These not to the Holy Land

One was to Occitania in southern france

The Cathars were Christian but did their own thing

And this the weight of the State on them did bring

The North was wanting to extend its power

So dubbed them heretics and on them glowered

Till the Albigensian Crusade of 1209

Had them all exterminated in double time

More times soldiers set of on these parades

But I’ll end with the sad Children’s Crusade

Three thousand children both French and German

Set off to conquer the Holy Land

Nick and Steve were their military guides

They were all sold as slaves or died

Richard got called the Lionheart ‘Coeur de Lion’

Because he proved it beyond

Any doubt in the Holy Lands

Yet things didn’t go as planned and

Heading back home

Leopold the fifth of Austria

Accosted him somehow or other

Letting Byzantine Holy Roman Emperor brother

Henry the Sixth slam him in jail

This caused English complexions to pale

As the ransom was a third of the countries wealth

A special tax levied at the poor was dealt

And Eleanor had to make sacrifices of her own

While Richard composed and thought of his throne

When he got out he crushed the coup

That John had been trying to do

Also regained lands lost to Philip once his friend

Though that friendship had long met it’s end

A brutal and arrogant King of great violent force

The ‘Good King’ of children’s books of course

Was slain by a child with a crossbow bolt

In dying Richard bewailed that he was at fault

Had remorse for undutifulness to his Father Henry

Wishing they might be reconciled when he

Saw him in the next world fast approaching

So Richard the Lionheart was buried close to him

His half brother John

Had been dying to get on

That Throne

Now it was his own

‘Bad King’ is how he is usually stereotyped

Certainly wasn’t liked

For he taxed to the max

And abused the fine administration

From when his dad ruled the situation

Richard had taken the Throne

Which Henry never condoned

But John was never appeased with gifts of terratory

He had failed to rule in Ireland temporarily

But now he was King he could do anything

But his actions caused many changes to ring

He did have a hard time John the Bad

But I don’t think I’ll feel too sad

He teamed up with Philip to little avail

Could not corrupt his taxmen when Richard was in jail

Saw to the murder of his nephew

Lost his French Lands too

Spending years trying to get them back

Was called John Lackland ‘cause land he lacked

Excommunicated for not accepting the papal candidate

John was steadily sealing his fate

The barons were fed up with John’s dismal campaigns

Incurring some new tax they had to pay

So revolted, took London then some time after

Drew up a thing called the Magna Carta

This was in Runnymeade by the Thames

A piece of paper as a means to an end?

It all shows John up as an appaling King

Yet modern constitutions stem from this thing

It declared the rights of Feudal times

Here’s the briefest of outlines

1. The Church would elect it’s own people

2. Large sums had to be given under consent

3.No man to be punished exept under common law

John grudgingly signed but delayed

Biding time for French to invade

The Barons offered French Louis the Throne

But were kicking off quite well on their own

In the midst of this chaos John died

Invasion and revolts going off on all sides

His son Henry was only nine

And was put on the Throne at this time

When rebellion caused by John

Was with the barons in the North going on

London and the south east

Were controlled by the French Dauphin Louis

Though the Henry was not very old yet

He had loyalty from the Midlands and South West

William the Marshall , Henry’s first Regent

Teamed with Barons and got Louis out the Region

Louis favoured too many Frenchmen in his Court

A big battle at Lincoln was how Louis’ lesson was taught

He went back to France to be King

Where it was less hassle for him

William governed followed by Hugh de Burgh when the Marshall died

And Henry III ruled in earnest from age twenty five

The land owning barons were keen

That things didn’t carry on as they had been

Kept on about the Magna Carta

Always to make it harder

For the King to have such total control

And by the same feudal rules be held

Nobles Barons and freeman felt the same

They wished perceptions rearranged

To see England as a community lot

Rather than just bits and bobs

Of independent principalities

Patchwork quilt localities

Of Manors owned by a few

And villages scattered through

Barons also wanted a say

In matters of state

Called a great council together

Kicked out the Chancery and the Exchequer

So the power of the King

And the government machine

Was answerable to their new councillors

Saying the State couldn’t tax too much or

Act irresponsibly with it’s power

Hoping that this would allow a

Broader governance than before

With wise council and restricting laws

The Barons thought this would be a tonic

But still Henry wound them up something chronic

By installing Frenchmen in the government

And Italians in the church meant

Regular English couldn’t get a place

It was quite some disgrace

And that wasn’t half of it

The Church had grown a bit

Corruptly covering Europe

So had plenty of scope

For extorting money

From all and sundry

For instance the English had to finance

A myriad officials working all over Christendom

Had to provide work and parishes

For any Italians who to England had come

The Barons were right peeved at this

Acquiescense to papal control buisness

And asserted national independence

In 1258 things had come to a point

When failed campaigns in France and Wales

Meant Henry had to put his land up for sale

And somehow pay for loads of new churches

Rome punched in the purse where it hurts yes

The last straw was financing the Pope versus Sicily

Another dismal failure actually

The Barons demanded reform there and then

Henry was forced to make a bargain

Something called the Provisions of Oxford was signed

That the Barons had designed

Letting them control the Realm

Henry was still at the helm

But could do nothing without it being known

This was OK at first

But gradually got worse and worse

Till bickering brought it low

And cracks began to show

Then Henry asserted himself

Stuffed the Provisions where it hurts

And caused a Civil War

Henry’s son Edward I lost it in Lewes in 1264

The baronial winner was Simon le Montfort

Brother in Law to Henry in the Angevine Court

For both King and Son it was imprisonment

Whilst de Montfort had the government

He went down well because of his family

And because he took reform seriously

Simon knew smaller landowners needed a say

As well as the substantially more moneyed

So summoned Knights burgesses and baronial gents

To the world’s prototype parliament

Where high and low could speak their mind of words

In House of Commons and House of Lords

It didn’t strictly mean that the poor had a voice

They were spoken for and had no choice

This was what it lead to though not formalized yet

The idea was just settling when up came a new threat

Gloucester’s Earl dropped out and Edward did escape

Those two got together and to arms they did take

Simon de Montfort was at Evasham slain

Henry was released and resumed his reign

Though it was Edward who had the power

His father was old now and maybe a bit sour

A failed soldier, politician and what bites to the core

His era was Kingship restricted by Law

Edward by contrast seemed to grasp

The modern notions and take to task

The letter of the Law decreed

Which called a King supreme

Judge and legislator yet also deemed

His subjects to be protected

(This last bit his father had rejected)

The King should rule with advisers

To council on all matters arising

Apparently he did so good for him

Cared for his subjects did this King

Though he was shrewd with the cash flow

And made a mobile retinue

Comprised administrators judges clerks

Magnates who went as part

Of a King’s household and council

That anytime anyplace could fill

In forms and have a deep chat

Find out where it was at

And what to do for the best

When it came to England’s interests

His refining of laws decreased feudal holdings

As more and more land the crown was owning

And the King alone could make you a vassal

No more could you take your house to church and sell

The land was getting turned into commodity

Inch by inch was given to the Monarchy

People might have felt protected by their Lord

But on these fine points might have felt unsure

Writers report that he did very well

Certain it was that his coffers did swell

For those not his subjects foreign policy was aggressive

He walloped the Welsh to give them the message

King Lywelyn ap Gruffydd died and lost his country all

Wales was placed under English civil law

Edward built new castles there

And English Royals since then declare

Their eldest sons to be hailed

As mercy me, the Prince of Wales

He had small success in Celtic Ireland

Negotiated France but was drawn to stand

Against incursions from Philip of Gascony

Yet in the end made a peace treaty

And retained the land won in parley

That he had before the fight

Gentlemen’s agreement, alright

Scotland in the lowlands was feudal

And in the mountains it was tribal

Edward saught through negotiation

For Margret of Scotland to marry his eldest son

She was the legitimate heir

But died on the way there

Edward had cleverly got a right to intercede

As the Scots feudal Lord, can you believe!

So could choose from claimants and chose John Baliol

Who as Lord took Edward on

But the Scots would not fight for the English King

Who invaded and soundly kicked them in

Causing Baliol to abdicate

And Edward to take his place

The Scots well hated this

And William Wallace

Incited rebellion most stirring

And defeated the English at Stirling

The next year however Edward fought back

Defeating Wallace at Falkirk

For several years the resistance went on

Till Wallace was caught and faced execution

He died but others took up the bitter fight

Robert the Bruce an heir’s grandson had the might

Had some victory but nothing outright

Then Robert some tricks from a spider learned

And smashed Edward for good at Bannockburn

Thus for many centuries

Scots hated Sassanacks almost entirely

Foreign policy had cost Edward sore

So he instituted taxes to pay for these wars

The Great Council meetings now called Parliament

Now showed Edward what justice meant

In the Magna Carta there is the clause

That says no King is above his Laws

And that taxes are levied only with consent

Of the Realm as spoke for by Parliament

While all this was happening, over in Japan

There happened the birth of a remarkable man

Born in Awa Province to seaweed farmers

His name was Zennichimara

Which changed at 16 when he took his tonsure

The guy wanted to be a monk for sure

And Rencho was the name he took

His big question

For the Japanese nation

Was why if so many practised

So much to so many Buddhist

Gods then why was there everywhere war

Why was life so demeaned what was the cause

Of the earthquakes and disasters and marshall law

Did they truly portent doom for all

Why when the prayers were made

Did they not do their job and save

Why were streets so often full of corpses

Pestilence crime murder and disease

A year before his birth in 1221

A struggle had broken out that affected everyone

The Imperial Court had tried to break free

From the Regent Hojo Yoshitoki. Not so easy

The Shogunate military heavies did a coup

Deposed the Emperor and got someone new

People prayed much to a Buddha called Amida

He lived to the East in a realm far

Too far away to reach in this lifetime

But in the next one you’d be fine

Rencho studied all he could find

Read every text to fill his mind

With knowledge of Sutras Treatise and Law

Looking for truth searching for flaws

That compromised Shakyamuni’s original wish

He wanted to accomplish this

And grasp the kernel that transmits

The Buddha nature surely within

Where to look where to begin

The Lotus Sutra was spoken to express

The life that is best

That radiates from the mind of Buddha

That one can make as good a

Go of things even in dire circumstances

Rencho thought this was the one

After many years of study he’d done

And that if you chanted it’s title, it’s name

There was great benefit to gain

His point really was that Amida was mind control

Dressed up to effect fealty to the Emperor

It upset the balance of karma

Praying to Amida

Because it did nothing to challenge our inner greeds

Being only a diversion that corruption feeds

A population with placatory words

That doesn’t help the world

Never cries justice to evil

Is too afraid even

To think differently

Because yes the authorities would see

So Rencho spoke the mantra we can all know

Which is Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo

Or I devote myself to the mystic law of cause and effect

Sanscrit and Vedic

Effective in a jam. Chant it if you can

When they first heard him do this mantra

The abiding priests had a tantrum

You can’t do this here or anywhere they said

Some actually wanted him dead

But Rencho escaped and changed his name

To Sun Lotus, which is ‘Nichiren’

He went around telling people to have no doubt

This little mantra was what it was about

A direct spiritual assault on the authorities

Whose Gods probably started quaking at the knees

The rest of his life this is what he did teach

The rest of his life he vexed heavy duty control freaks

But then he had heavy duty followers

Like Shijo Kingo a full power Samuria Warrior

Who was a healer as well

Who would have followed Nichiren to hell

This was his sentiment one time

When Nichiren’s life was really on the line

There was a beheading block and his head was on it

When overhead flew this flaming great comet

That lit up the sky to make night into day

Most of the monks there ran away

Soldiers bold were stricken with fear

But there were some that went near

To Nichiren because they saw who he was

Perceived something different through the fog

Of misconceptions about a man

Whose concern was simply for the Land

To be free and the people happy

It still wasn’t evidently

Executions could not take place in the sun

The Sage ordered Sake for everyone

They could catch him but never kill him

This was some prophesy fulfilling

Nichiren’s major concern was the Mongol Invasion

He said it would come

And they would wipe out everyone

Unless Amida and others similar

Ceased to be the State Creed

But the Government would not heed

He said it once twice three times in remonstrance

Yet the Government didn’t give it a chance

To which the Great Sage Nichiren saw

That it would be less slander to the Mystic Law

They wouldn’t be around to make more bad causes

If they were cut to pieces by the Mongol forces

He was exiled, he’d said his piece

The Mongols came but had storms at sea

That smashed them to bits on the cliffs

The invasion wasn’t a great success

It was Kublai Khan who had sent them there

Wishing vengeance on Japan from earlier

But maybe they overstepped themselves

There was much infighting as well

Ghengis Khan’s Grandson of the Pleasure Dome

As his travelling canvas palace was well known

Somehow touchs all places with inspiration flowing

But that’s not the Mongols that is the poem

Kublai Khan that I learnt in school

When I first touched those waters cool

That inspiration rings true clear

Say in bardic notions when one hears

The motion of this water

In ones inner caves

The shadow of a dome of pleasure

Floating midway on the waves

And maybe it is flowing with pure Awen

To brighten up our days

Maybe just illusion

Idealistic vision

Maybe the start of

A lifelong mission

What is the portent of such mirages?

It depends on who the judge is

Could it have been that one time

Life was lived as sublime

Not to say it was Utopia

Perhaps a different view on fear

And Death that is ever near

Living lives not yet formed

The concept of separation from

You or me or anything

It depends who is judging

In the crystal clear water vision

Can we see a time beyond

Crass trickery of war?

Surely tribes always fought

To protect their own

This is what history has shown

‘It’s human nature and it will never change’

I’ve known people gruffly explain

My friends know that history lies

To big up the bad guys

Twist it round

Faerie heritage gone underground

It was no place to be a faerie

To live in the thirteenth century

Kublai Khan

He of indomitable command

Ghengis his Grandfather

Who couldn’t have been harder

Also saw I believe

Through a magic prism

His rare Pleasure Dome

Those caves of ice Coleridge had known

Nichiren the Sage

Shogunate Japan all in the same age

As my telling of Kings

Which should quite nicely bring

Us to Edward the Second

Speaking of faeries

I don’t mean to be unkind

But he didn’t fit the mould

Of his belligerent line

He was a homosexual

Of another mind

His late father must have been

Grave-raging in perpetual spin

Edward II was inept in war

It was not what he adored

The Barons were infuriated

With Edwards gifts to men he rated

Saught to keep this Prince of Wales in check

Before he all of England wrecked

One Piers Gaveston from Gascony

Had been kicked out already

By Edwards father but he got back

Was a wayward influence on the lad

And siphened off too much power

It made the Barons glower

His Magnate imposed restrictions

And quite happily banished wily Gaveston

Until the barons kicked off and had him killed

Edward agreeing to more terms was hardly thrilled

Thomas Earl of Lancaster

Was brought by the Magnate

To help with the State

The King had fallen in with another outsider

His name being Hugh Dispenser

And together they executed Lancaster

After the battle of Boroughbridge York

Hugh and Edward ruled but there were revolts

Many were beheaded or exiled

Making enemies all the while

Then in Gascony sent on a mission

Edwards wife had a frisson

With Roger Mortimer an expatriate Baron

They invade England put Edward in prison

The King is killed a poker up the bum

Mortimer is ruling on the Throne is Edwards son

Edward the Third seemed much a Kings King

Nothing peculiar about him

His wife Phillipa gave him lots of children

His sexuality in court was less bewildering

He could kill made lots of war

That’s what God put him there for

Crowned at fourteen

He killed Mortimer

And exiled his Mother

Assuming control of the Government

His was the Hundred years war with France

Edward spoke of Chivalric Romance

With reality far more distanced. Gruesome

Death-mongering would be more truthsome

With Baliol he did in the Scots

Scotland again England got

Lines and alliances went back and forth

Concerning territory and allegiances troth

A naval battle called Sluys then at Calais and Cresy

Got the English on French soil, it was messy

Then came the Black Plague

Bubonic infections of great blue-black buboes

You don’t want to get one of them you know

Contact that and your dead in three days

Which took half of the population away

And foreign hostilities subsided a bit

People were not able to manage it

Then with the Black Prince, Edward’s son

They went and trounced everyone

With a big army surrounding Paris

Till was signed a treaty of Peace

Conceding lands in Bretingny

To English Sovereignty

But it was soon lost again

In the hundred years war game

A slow formation of history

Is what we see here

England’s moulding by the greedy

Yet also pressures of the times

The Merchant class was rising

Making money not surprising

From wool off of the backs

Of the poor peasants sheep

Merchants could speak in parliament

You can see that this meant

The poorer folk were spoken for

Not permitted in the door

The Feudal world was passing

The Merchant class was in

Meaning there were fewer landed barons

Now it was taxes of export and commerce not land

That fed the Royal purse a plenty

Which could then stretch to mercenaries

Replacing the vassals obligation of before

Treason was defined by statute of law

French ceased to be the tongue

That was spoken in Court

Sheriffs were given appointments

This was all done in Parliament

John of Gaunt had failed in France

The Plague had struck hard economic advance

Not everything was rosy

In the Court of Edward Three

John Wycliff made ecclesiastic reform

On Pope and Kings corrupt goings on

The Black Prince was ill

And Edward was dying

The Black Prince died

and Edward was crying

Too much tax had cost him the people’s faith

When his Mistress with William Chamberlain

And John of Gaunt

Ran the court in his dotage

They did things he didn’t notice

Edward ended his life feeling very bad

Was it punishment for the badness he had?

It was just after the Black Plague

There was all round reduced wages

But Parliament had not restricted prices

This of course had led to the Revolt

Richard the Second was the son of the Black Prince

And Joan the Fair Maid of Kent

What they say about his life is not

Nesicerily how it went

Made King at ten

He was fourteen when at Mile End

He met some people we now call peasants

With whom he agreed to concessions

They demanded he consent

Concerning certain ministers they did resent

Who had made their tax too steep

Risen from 4d to 12d

A levy of one fifteenth movable wealth

Was traditional and could be dealt

But this new tax was an unjust trickery

That and they were tired of villeiny

Contrary to the image that history gives us

It seems that these poor people were quite sussed

Were organised very well I have heard

From Essex and Kent to converge

In London with specific aims

To target those that from them gained

The exorbitant tax that was so hated

It seems that the authorities had not rated

Them with intelligence to take action

And were not fully prepared in reaction

(Though they knew how to deal with any rebel

The revolt didn’t take too long for them to quell)

The radical priest John Ball

Had made a sermon to them all

At Blackheath where his famous speech began

"When Adam delved and Eve span

Who was then the gentleman?"

He meant that when God the world began

He put no chains on man and woman

Implying that no man should be enslaved

A message that still echoes these days

This was spoken to the men of Kent

Whom Wat Tyler did represent

Over the London Bridge they marched

Into the cities very heart

Another leader, Jack Straw

Meanwhile brought many more

In from Essex way

They arrived at Stepney

And burnt the Savoy Palace of John Gaunt

Along with properties of the Knight’s Hospitalier Order

But it was all to do with targetting

Those who the hated tax had helped to bring

On the people disproportionate to their income

Yet this was not wanton violence they had done

But specific acts with particular aims

To stop the unjust unfair gain

Of ministers who an advantage used

With the King being such a youth

The people destroyed such records

Pertaining to the taxing they deplored

And this shows that some were literate

A fact that history tends not to iterate

Some people stormed the Tower of London

And there were several executions

Of prominent government ministers

Who had this tax administered

Such as Lord Chancellor Simon of Sudbury,

Archbishop of Canterbury

And Robert de Hales

Grande Prior of the Knight’s Hospitaliery

Both who met their end quite quickly

Richard had audience with the people

They wanted a King and they wanted Him

They thought him innocent which is believable

And he seemed to find their demands reasonable

For he bade that every one be pardoned

Not that he kept his side of the bargain

At Smithfield they all met again

Where Walter Tyler further proclaimed

Demands that no man be chained

By villeany or serfdom

There should be one King whose name was not John

The Church own no land and it’s authority gone

That the same be true of the Nobles

That they just handed their property over

And that there should be but one law

That being the Common Law of Winchester

It was better One King over all commanding

Than scores of Barons all squabbles and bickering

Tyler is said to have gone to parley

With the King and his Party but there was a fray

Out of the Common Peoples sight

So the version we hear is from only one side

Wat Tyler we are made to believe

To King Richard behaved discourteously

Grabbing him and drinking a pitcher of water so rudely

That Mayor Walworth killed Wat to reproove him

Richard rode out and addressed the nervy crowds

Though very young he was good at speaking out loud

Lying to them that Tyler had been made a Knight

That they should simply go home it was all alright

Yet in a fortnight the instigators were tracked

And under torture perhaps on a rack

Jack Straw confessed the names of revolutionaries

They were found and it didn’t help him any

He was killed and John Ball and more

It was a job for the executioner

Richard or his ministers revoked their reforms

And everything went on much as before

The tax was back

The poor still lacked

Perhaps they had been inspired to react

By reading or hearing the bardic tract

Of just published Piers Ploughman

And his Pilgrims Progress

Which spoke to the reality of their life’s stress

Which with other emerging troubadour tales

Blew around Europe senses to regale

With imaginings beyond what had been before

Opening up a new life’s door

The Limousin Troubadour Bertran de Boron

Had been bored

Back at the start of the Plantegenet Court

Hearing endless tales gory and violent

He thought it boorish and must have made comment

Henry the Seconds idea of high art

Was a leap a whistle and a fart

Such level of accomplishment

Thought this de Boron it is evident

Would be quite an embarrassment

In the Courts he had been

Which appealed to the Queen

Eleanor of Aquitaine surely knew what he meant

For she with troubadours her youth had spent

Her Grandfather had been Duke William the Ninth

The Count of Poitiers who had spent much of his time

Womanising in far lands of Crusade

And learning the songs of the age

Passing them on or making them new

And he was considered quite risque too

He composed love songs to women who were married

Which technically with it the death sentence carried

But it all helped to loosen things up

And Eleanor as I poeticised brought the cup

Of the Grail in tales passed down

Through her the line of troubadour found

To hear of that Grail that Percival achieved

Such a story to believe!

That Cretain de Troyes and Wolfram von Essenbach

Would also have tracked

Slowly filling the ears and minds of folk

Stories written with an imagination to evoke

Ethical and spiritual codes

Feelings suggest in a modern mode

To teach it and enrich daily life

To help people through their plight

And bring in new frames of mind

From the Eastern lands sublime

Which had a very big impact

To a boorish country that

Was not quite so far advanced as it thought

Inside a small and violent mind set caught

The tenets of Courtly Love

Were taught at Eleanor’s behest

And they stood the test

Of time through violent ages

With another form of persuasion

The world of Courtesans

Who diplomatically understand

Their role where marriage can cause

Both friendship and wars

By the time of Richard the Second

These ideas were well reckoned

And it is said he ran his Court

With a great deal of these thoughts

Terry Jones has said that there was magic

Too bad his ending was tragic

He was misrepresented by history he argues

I’ve heard it said how unpopular he was

But the fact he was topped was a loss

Maybe I can give Richard some dues

And say his court was refined

And he wasn’t out of his mind.

It was Bollingbroke, his cousin

Who gave him that reputation

Richard had given too much

To favorites he unwisely trusted

Michael de la Pole, Robert de Vere and others

Who with Thomas Duke of Gloucester

Formed the Lord’s Appellant

Who tried and convicted five of Richard the Second’s

Closest advisors. For this the King made parliament

Execute three Lords and give two banishment

But when Richard went to quell an Irish rebellion

One of the Lords returned to be crowned by parliamentary concession

This was Bollingbroke I should mention

Richard on return had no support and was imprisoned

He was killed of course

First casualty in the Wars

Of the Roses caught

Between the houses of Lancaster and York

Since the time of Edward the Third

As you have briefly heard

This was the time for treachery on a high level

So who was for real could be hard to tell

There were imposters whom I shall describe

Who feigning a heritage their real birth-lines hide

Let's talk of one King Sigismund of Luxemberg

Who was other than said his silvern words

It was he who first assumed the line

In 1408 he announced his family was entwined

With the Royal House of Anjou

Of course it was not true

But he said it was his

And founded the Societas Draconis

Falsly claiming direct British Elven Descent

Can you see what this meant?

Now if you thought that was phony

What about his vampire cronie?

Vlad Draculae or Basarrab

Was invited to the club

To him the descent also wrongly dubbed

Was to the Egyptian Sobek crocodile cult

The power base was thus affirmed

It looked the same but was upturned

They determined the route for Kings to take

That left blood and deception in it’s wake

Stole the robe that denotes the descent

Not at all what the true line meant

To promulgate about the world

This fraud a new banner unfurled

Proclaiming persecution for the fey

And anyone else who doesn’t pay

A clear departure from the way

Intended by the original crew

Of course none of this was that new

Persecutions were rife against those of true knowing

Like the Cathars and the Templars who kept it going

Such knowledge these families held deep in life

Was the reason for their much and arduous strife

Yet falsehood is another gambit than this

What seems like love is a poisonous kiss

Lacking soul but looks the part

Wears the suit but has no heart

Detesting life they suck you dry

You cannot live you cannot die

HUNDRED YEARS WAR p118

The Hundred Years war game had been raging

Since 1337 between England and France campaigning

For the terratory of Aquitaine

Plus Edward had a French throne to claim

Using innovative and deadly new technology

Of the Longbow that skewered horribly

Agincourt was won and Crecy and Poitiers

By the English though it didn’t stay that way

After many a naval skirmish in the channel

Many a raid and siege and battle

Joan d’Arc at just seventeen

Rallied the French and at the siege of Orleans

Turns the tide of the English invasions

She acted from divine persuasions

Visions told her to take her French homeland

Back from dominating English hands

And from that point, though she died at nineteen

Bit by bit the English did leave

Later she was captured at Compiegne

And was used in a political smear campaign

To undermine the French King by association

In a fix-up trial for heresy against the papal persuasion

They burnt her at the stake

And burnt her again to make no mistake

Causing the executioner to fear being damned

Geoffroy Therage felt he’d killed a holy woman

Under Henry the Sixth

England’s French grip truly slipped

Twenty five years from Orleans

Save for Calais the English were gone

Called the Hundred Years War by history

This sequence of wars ended in 1453

A couple of years on and it’s the Wars of the Roses

Where were all the faeries one supposes?

p.119

WARS OF THE ROSES ACCORDING TO SHAKESPEARE

1455 to 1485 was the English silly season for usurping

Drawing to an end the line of Plantagenet Kings

Two sides of a family fighting it out for succession

It wasn’t like this when the Tuatha were in session!

They were mad for it to rule the land

With power of military command

This form of sucession was not always so

As my little bardery has tried to show

Long before it was by female consent

That determined how it went

Not this game of eldest son

So relatively recent begun

Shakespeare dubbed it the Wars of the Roses

And it only goes to show

How a family divided all England to uncivil war

All to sort out their claim line, I ask what for?!?

It’s my own perogative and my propagandum too

To muse on alternative ways to rule

Richard the Second

May or may not have got to heaven

But I hear his court was a riot

He didn’t try to keep the satirists quiet

Lampooning was allowed

In fact spoken out loud

As part of the Royal amusements

In quite some profusement

Geoffrey Chaucer

Our father of literature

Had great daring if you read him

And consider what he put in

To some of his witticisms

Church and state criticisms

Like the Friars who live up Satan’s arse

Numerous as swarming bees what class

To know these things Geoff was well qualified

For many court offices he had occupied

This accepting mood was not to last

Under Bolingbrooke it had to exit fast

What happened to Chaucer noone knows

No records of death with could just show

He was done in secretly because of his position

His insightful stories seen as sedition

So it was war and more war

One ends another is an open door

That was chosen to step through

Rights to rule to proove

The power hungry drool

War is the perfect tool

For taking what is not yours

A King authenticates the cause

Surely the case here adopted

But Boling brooke was not popular

He became Henry the Fourth

And was tolerated because

Richard 2 had been so disliked

(In spite of his Court which sounded nice)

Henry 4 was John Gaunt’s son the 3rd son of Edward 3

But his name was not the first up on the family tree

It should have been descendants of Lionel of Antwerp Edward the Thirds’s 2nd son ,

Richard had said that they were the ones

Who through progeniture should have put the crown on

Roger Mortimer, Lionel’s grandson that Richard had named while he still lived

Was as in Plantagenet lineage their heir presumptive

But Bolingbrooke saw not like this

And violently made it his

Being no heir apparent himself

He took it by stealth

Thus inciting many claims

Using Mortimer’s name

In Wales Cheshire and Northumberland

He got these under command

But didn’t live long to enjoy the gain

His son continued the militaristic reign

Bringing success in that French war game

So this Henry the Fifth was a popular Monarch

In a land where violence is so obviously honoured

But he died and it was the turn of Henry the Sixth

Who due to unstable mind was not really fit

To be England’s ruler over all

But there were more waiting in the stalls

Mortimer’s Daughter Anne

And Richard of Cambridge, her man

Begat Richard of York

Who when he grew up, King Henry would stalk

For Kingship him to challenge

Not that Henry was managing

He was loosing what was in France gained

And with these bouts of illness with his brain

Needed advisors and he got them bad

Edmund Beaufort Duke of Somerset he had

And William de la Pole Duke of Suffolk likely lads

Who dissipated further what control there was

A clear case for the York line of Richard because

The Royal House was in total dissarray

As was much of the country

Still smarting from Henry 4’s usurpery

With much disdaining of Royal authority

And fighting between long established noble families

And those minor nobility that Bolingbrooke had raised

Noteably between the established Northumbrian Percies

And brother-in law Richard Neville with little mercy

In Cornwall it was the Courtneys and the Bonnevilles

It was get your brother and kill kill kill

It was all the rage to go for broke

With wars big and small provoked

By ambiguity or downright illegality

Of the Royal descent

Wholesale carnage this all meant

As the Duchess in Wonderland said

We are painting the white roses red

With Royal confusion at its head

All classes of folk ended up dead

Because of the Kings mental instability

Richard of York set up a council of Regency

Imprisoning Lancastrian Edmund of Somerset

And setting his allies against Henry yet

The King revived from his malaise

And hindered Richard’s scheming ways

He was forced out of Court by Henry’s Queen

That being Margaret of Anjou who had seen

He was trouble but then so was she

And with the help of Lancastrian Nobility

Diminished Richards influence

Till it got him really incensed

And at St Albans hostilities flared

The first of the battles happened there

Richard removed Henry’s unsound advisers

That was his spin then in 1455

Edmund of Somerset and other leaders were dead

Richard was the victor but instead

Of raving on about it, both sides seemed shocked

That they had in war become locked

And made up to each other for a while

Richard resumed the role of Protector

As to the Queen he tried to reject her

When Henry lost it again

Margaret was demoted to look after the ailing King

They had a son Edward was his name

At it slowly kindled hostilities again

In Court Richard had the biggest influence

But Margaret would not yield to any inference

Suggesting her son would not be King

Such thoughts as these violence will bring

Though she waited while Richard had bigger armies

And set up Court over in Coventry

They were more popular there

Than in London where

Merchants were miffed by the loss of trade

Now that proper order had decayed

Somerset’s son was now the rising star of the Court

Things began to get more and more fraught

Margaret got Henry to strip York of his titles

And soon it would be down to where the fight was

Richard was sent back to his Ireland post

There were pirate raids on the South Coast

And as the Capitol slid into a messy situation

The King and Queen thought only of their continuation

She introducing conscription for the first time

Very aware of the tense political clime

Here Richard Neville Earl of Warwick

Had gained popularity and was in thick

With the Merchant classes, a powerful place to be

Soon there would be more hostilities

Richard returned from Ireland

To light the civil war firebrand

A battle in Staffordshire was the first blow

When a Yorkist army heading for Ludlow

Met with a large Lancastrian force

And at Blore Heath they fought of course

The Yorkists made it to the Castle as planned

But later the Lancastrians got the upper hand

After the battle at Ludford Bridge had passed

Richard of York’s eldest son Edward the Earl of March

Had to flee for Calais as did Salisbury and Warwick

Somerset was sent to evict them his efforts came to nowt

The Yorkists even sent ship-raids to knock them about

England was a messy chaotic situation

And in 1460 Warwick made a proper invasion

Got into Kent and London where they were loved

A Papal decree granted backing from above

And at Northampton push came to shove

King Henry was captured there was treachery done

And the Yorkists returned him to merry old London

Because he was victor Richard pushed for King

At first the Lords would not let him in

But York showed his family tree

Detailing more direct geneology

Descending from Lionel of Antwerp

I can see why he felt it would work

Untainted by collateral claimers

Fratricidal usurpers who left a trail of

Wars caused by imbalance of power

Allegiances split and at such an hour

An incapable King of questionable heredity

Causing uncertainty throughout the whole country Henry remained with a majority of five Lords

So they made this new Act of Accord

Disinheriting Henrys son Edward

Giving succession to Richard instead

Which suited him fine

He was next in line

And he governed anyway as Protector of the Realm

As you can see he had done quite well

Margaret was expelled with the child she went North

Lancastrians could not accept the Act of Accord

So rallying round her a large army formed

Amassing strength and brewing a storm

The Duke of York and Lord Salisbury departed

From London headed North to reckon with Margaret

Taking a position at Sandal Castle near Wakefield

And here comes the moment when fate deals

Misfortune to the Duke who had half as many men

As Margaret, attacked and never got up again

Slain, his head put on a spike

His son Edmund and Salisbury alike

Their heads were placed on the gates at York

It was in vain that Richard fought

According to the Accord York’s eldest Edward was heir

And Warwick the biggest landowner in the ar-ea

So Margaret asked the Scots for help against them

Queen Mary Gueldres agreed on condition

She got Berwick Town and her daughter wed Edward

They both agreed and the plan went ahead

Due to circumstances of having no cash

Mary said Margaret could trash

Anywhere below the river Trent

And that is just how it went

In the rich Southern Lands

Extensive pillaging began

Then at Mortimer Cross in Hereford

Edward thrashed Jasper Tudor good

And three suns seen at sunrise the Parhelion

Were said to symbolise York’s surviving three sons

Edward, Richard and George

And this Sunne in Splendour

Was made into their emblem

They were young men then

Warwick let news of Margaret’s plundering

Act as propaganda that helped bring

Southerners round to a Yorkist allegiance

When Coventry changed there was a chance

But too late and too few and with no Edward

At St Albans the Earl was caught off guard

By Margaret’s armies who made him flee

Only to find her Henry unharmed beneath a tree

Margaret headed for London Town

It’s people put the portcullis down

And raised the drawbridges refusing to feed

The Lancastrians who in their need

Pillaged nearby Hertfordshire and Middlesex

But when Edward and Neville arrived from the West

Margaret had North to Dunstable gone

And the Yorkists were let into London

London wanted Edward King

But before they could coronate him

Henry VI would have to be exiled or executed

Because he taken arms against the heir it suited

This was against the Act of Accord written down

It happened at the Battle of Wakefield Town

Edwards brother and father had met their killers

It had gone beyond Henrys bad councillors

Edward and Neville headed North to near York

And met with the large Lancastrian force

At Towton where was the biggest battle as yet

In one day twenty thousand soldiers met their deaths

Edwards victory saw the Lancastrians destroyed

Henry and Margaret fled North with their little boy

Many Lancastrian nobles that had survived

Now changed over to Edwards side

Others went North or to Wales with wounds

Many would be routed out quite soon

When Edward went to York he saw the rotting heads

Of Lord Salisbury his father and brother so instead

He stuck up heads of dead Lancastrian Lords

Including Edmunds executioner the notorious Clifford

Henry and Margaret were in Scotland

At the Court of James the Third ensconced

They conceded Berwick and attacked Carlisle

But they had no money and were trounced

Yorkist forces were wiping out Lancastrians

Where they had fled to the Borderlands

Edward was coronated

At least he had waited

And he ruled in peace for ten years

Resistance remained till 1464

The Percies fell at Alnwick and Bamburgh

There was Hedgely Moor and Hexham

Where Nevilles brother John neatly squashed them

When finally ended the seven year siege at Harlech

Edward had got the thing licked

Henry the deposed King and Margaret were found

And both were put in the Tower of London

Treated quite well it seems at first

Though things did turn out for the worse

There came a time when Richard ‘Kingmaker’ Neville

Earl of Warwick and King Edwards friendship chilled

Liz Woodville was a girl Edward secretly would wed

While Neville had got other plans for him instead

To marry a French girl for their allegiance

But Edward went for his romance

And Woodvilles became more favoured than Nevilles

Which naturally brought out all the devils

Neville was for allegiance with France but Edward was for Burgandy

Edward would not let his brothers Nevilles sisters marry

Neville joined with jealous George

Defeating Edward at Edgecot Moor

At Middleham Castle he was held

His Queens father promptly killed

Edward was forced to call a parliament

That would declare him illegitimate

The crown would go to George Duke of Clarence

As he was Edward’s heir apparent

Yet Richard his brother came to the rescue

With most of the nobles in the retinue

The King was freed a little later

Neville and George called traitors

And forced to flee to France out of the flack

Where exiled Margaret was planning a comeback

King Louis suggested the old enemies get together

Pool their skills to see whether

They could turn the tables

They married two of their children and invaded

This time Edward had to flee

John Neville returned his loyalty

To his brother and his armies caught Edward short

His army scattered but he was not caught

Made it to Holland then Burgandy

While Warwick reinstated Henry

Ed and Rich were the traitors now

When Neville planned invading Burgandy with Louis

Charles the Bold of Burgandy helped Ed with an army

Neville was defeated at the Battle of Barnet

After all that effort he must have thought darn it!

The Battle of Tewksbury did for the last Lancastrians

Henry VI and his heir Edward met their grizzly ends

Murdered to make the York line more strong

Just as murder would feature before too long

With Edward the Fourth back in the picture

Some would say that was the end of conflict sure

But he soon died and mayhem resumed

Because the Woodvilles recently assumed

Power in Court was resented by factions

And sooner or later would come the reaction

Though the families were all of the Yorkist line

There was dissension within at this time

Edward the Fifth was only twelve when coronated

This son of a Woodville was bound to be ill fated

Richard Duke of Gloucester Protector of the Realm

Was the ipso facto leader at England’s troubled helm

With William Hastings and Henry Stafford

Captured young Edward in Bucks at Stony Stratford

And in the Tower of London left him to reside

Soon joined by his brother Richard of York aged nine

What happened to them nobody knows

They were kept out of the way and neatly disposed

The Duke declared their parents’ marriage illegal

To which parliament agreed making Gloucester Regal

The Titulus Regius named him Richard the Third

Of which statute the next King would not read a word

Henry would have them destroyed so no one could trace

In the King business you could never loose face

Lancastrian hopes were for this Henry Tudor

Henry VI’s illegitimate half-brother but proved more

By marriage on his Mother Margaret Beaufort’s side

Her father was John of Beaufort who touched the line

He Edward the Third’s grandson by John of Gaunt

Was good enough lineage the Yorkists to taunt

Henry Tudor defeated Richard the Third

At the famous battle of Bosworth Field

To quickly become King Henry the Seventh

He marries Elizabeth of York who had the best descent

And fused the two roses into one

Hoping for a new peace to come

A red and white Tudor Rose

Containing symbolism to close

The Lancastrian Yorkist Wars

Though executing several more

Claimants was in store to keep the peace

A policy his son would keep

And then to coincide with families and their Royal taste

A demon was put there in Richard the Third’s place

A hunchback usurper according to Shakespeare

That his were Tudor times comes through very clear

After Henry became the Sixth was the Battle of Stoke

An event seemingly by a young man provoked

He was Lambert Simnel

A boy who resembled

The young Yorkist Earl of Warwick

But the plot didn’t stick

Warwick was alive in Henry’s custody

John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln was crushed duly

At Stoke wiping out Yorkist opposition

Simnel was pardoned and made work in the kitchen

Lastly Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard of York

Who was he? Henry just set the executioner to work



I ain't got no home, I'm just a-ramblin' round
I'm just a wandrin' worker, I roam from town to town.
The police make it hard wherever I may go
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road
A hot and dusty road that a million feet done trod;
Rich man took my home and drove me from my door
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Was a-farmin' on the share, and always I was poor
My crops I laid into the banker's store;
My wife took down and died upon the cabin floor
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Now as I look round, it's mighty plain to see
The world is such a great and a funny place to be;
The gamblin' man is rich and the workin' man is poor
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

note: words by Guthrie; tune from Carter Family "Can't Feel at
Home In this World Anymore" See also CANTHOME
@dustbowl

Geoffrey Chaucer lived in his da

y

A Merchant himself with much to say

Many offices he had held in his name

But his Canterbury tales is what has remained

Nobody knows how he died was he lynched?

For knowing too much or being too rich

Times were changing

Society rearranging

Gone were the old style troubadours

Of

Syria Egypt

Syria Egypt

one

EPOS PROPAGANDUM

Sumerian Origin

The Sumerian Stone Tablets discovered in their thousands

Tell of the full administrative religious agricultural and

Cosmological life and origins on Earth

Listen as I speak the birth

Of cities of people before and after the flood’s deluge

In the fertile cresent of the Euphrates the cradle used

To make man

Where was an amazing civilization

According to cuniform wedge shaped glyphs

On these tablets, unexpected gifts

From the past which astonishing tosay

Specifically and scientifically relay

That Annunaki came from the sky

And made a man the earth to ply

For the orme gold

This man was called

Adapta or Adama

Begat by Birth Goddesses in the Temples of Procreation

A hybrid made for menial tasks with genetic limitations

Arduous on those priestesses to keep up the production

Hybrids cannot reproduce they need this skilled induction

It has come to be understood generally

That these stone texts tell the same story

That in Genesis is written down in less detail

Yes the Old Testament portrayal

Of Adam and Eve by God conceived

Has its’ root in far older Sumeria please

Understand that the Dead Sea Scrolls

Of a far profounder knowledge told

And that Sky Gods were what they meant.

Anu the Sun father sired Enlil and Enki

His sons by different mothers

Sibling rivalry was with these half brothers

Enki felt the ruling line

Came always through the Mothers side

Enlil was made general Lord of the Earth

Enki of the Sea was made an engineer, of quite some worth

This was ordained from space by these Annunaki

Who sound to me just like the Illuminati

At Nippur Enlil’s temple stood long

The male side of the family was coming on strong

Dominance of nature was going on

Though not all sources agree

It seems to have been much the degree

Enki designed a mortal to work very hard

Not too bright a bit of a retard

With his sister Ninki fashioned from clays

Homonculi inspiring it life with her ways

So keen for gold these Annunaki were

That soon Enki thought the treatment not fair

Of his creation he had made

Cursed to mine for all his days

Perhaps his little golem child blew his mind

He saw its’ potential thought his overlords unkind

Enlil made Edin as Lord of All Earth

This is as Genesis chapter the first

Exepting that God just isn’t around

It does correspond the scholarship’s sound

Enki gets to be the snake

Tries to get Adam and Eve to wake

By munching opon the knowledge tree

That was good for your spirituality

Yet Enlil it was who kicked them out for it

And Enki who fitted them out with new kit

Sourced his golems some prime DNA

Saying you don’t have to be this way

You shall be able to be who you are

Know of yourself and of the stars

To have children so you’re not dependent on us

You bet his actions caused lots of fuss

With bright mind awareness these people came

Perhaps were Cro-Magnons to give them a name

Suddenly civilized with knowledge of stars

From where had they come to fly so far?

When it came to the flood, that was Enlil’s doing

This was a party he was poo-pooing

Yet Enki the Engineer gave the measure

Of a stout vessel that could weather

Angry Enlil’s dire deluge

And when the storm at last was through

Enki, Noah and All started again

From that anchient mountain range

I hear of them set up in Egypt

Developing a magic that eclypsed

Enlil’s lot who were mining again

He was not keen on them using brains

The Tower of Babel was Enlil’s instigation

Scrambling up all human communication

Trying to thwart the divine spark

That Enki had felt to impart

Seeding thinking everywhere

This was getting Enlil scared

Tensions built up looks to blow a fuse

With a whole diplomatic subterfuge

The Royal Gods at loggerheads

Then it came that thing we dread

A nuclear war sparred by Enlil’s two sons

Blew Sodom and Gemorrah to kingdom come

The fall out blew over the Euphrates

Killed all of Sumer and some of the deities

It is said that Enlil hated their wisdom and learning

So finally conspired to set it all burning

He had to temper it after that collaterol

And Enlil played it less uni-lateral

Retired a bit as the ages rolled

The little man was out of control

And forming a world from his own native ken

Away from the fall out and explosions

Where there would be floods and there would be fire

But some they were living who were inspired

To ride out misfortune and live to the max

This story on stone tablets was written as facts

An attempt at scientific explanation

As above so below

The Celestial Heavens

And the Earth we chose

A tapestry in truth

Wove with stars

Mirror sewn

All that is known is here

That which is not is clearly

Stitched with hands that laced the void

Abiding cold yet kind

Star jewelled mind

Space is a womb that has no name

Clustered with bright stars like rain

Science tells us that when it's all over

They can collapse and go super-nova

Exploders that atomize

Leave a black hole behind

Spitting radiation tracers from the event horizon

Molecular chains evident

In free form gas clouds inclement

No life here it would seem

No one yet sleeps to dream

Yet a greater dream from a deeper sleep

Is waiting cocooned somewhere deep

From when thrown out by heavy metals' fusion

Life is not a foregone conclusion

Conditions must arise for that

And in scorching post explosion scene

That is as yet unlikely

Let us follow the globule

Of far flung planet making matter

As has splattered from the nova supra

Un-gelled into molecular soup

Wherein these dudes interact

Coupling up or in threes or more

Linking chains of potential

Elemental sorting codes check each other out

Zipping into electrical docks

Forming cliques more ridgid forms become

Shaped by space over aeons

A million million suns began

Planets can eventually become from these

Raging collections of itinerent chains

Of connectivity spun by gravity

Seemingly chance creativity

Slowly our solar system spun

Out on a galactic arm quite far from anyone

Quiet here so far out you get these conditions

Seemed fit for life so it began

What was exceptional in our case

Was our moon we know it's silvery face

Yet we owe it alot for our process

Now seen as the pull of seas tides

And the tug of watery emotions inside

But before gravitational lure kneeded

The Earth's molten core and surface

Trawling up from that deep heart elemental traces

Minerals mixed up moon pummelled it so

Majestic matron with guiding hands

We were her baby planet dough

Perhaps she knew the time would come

(For Time she embodies with patience long)

When conditions would cool

Out here on this distant cosmic spool

When moon's luminous light

And nurturing draw

Had kept the little dream

Safe from harm

When what do you know?

LIFE APPEARED

Small at first but determined and weird

One thing leads to another

Amoebas' one cell splits

And here comes mitosis

Building blocks of existance

Making matter from plankton getting eaten

The bones and shells of a trillion trillion

Trillobites caeolin and sea creatures

Thrown up by deep earth ruptures

To form high mountain structures

Repeatedly drawn beneath waves

Challenging the new crawling forms to be brave

And to emerge in spite of it all

-Behold the all new back bone evolved

Out of the sea they say it came

Where womb waters sustained

Creatures before names

Adapting to survive

Up for it some new all consuming ride

Through the birth channel existance

A new species joins the dance

Primaeval romance takes place

Through Earth shifts and ice age

Life forms cascaded on each other fed

Loved and paraded

Feared and maybe faded

Or stayed and related

The rock tells the tale

It was there all along

Formed and unformed

The subject of songs

Sung by a God or a Gnosis or need

Of feminine protagonist brooding to breed

Plentifold forms upon this still forming world

Whose rocks relative recent were hurled

From mouth of creation and spun through space

Nursed and cradled by Moon Mother in our case

Now bringing life to a circumstance rich

With potential for something really big

The great landmass of Pangaea

Formed when the heavenly fire

Cooled sufficient from the molten starstuff

Powered by the heavy metal elements - we've got enough

And more

Through the core

Also spotted about ourshaken up and stirred up orb

As hurtled through space at temperatures sub-zero

In the vacuum certain features appeared through

The core

And in the crust and on the face

Choice substances were folded

Giant landscapes hot were scolded

By the rare and strange substance water

Which did immensly alter

Everything everywhere

And as I said that moon drew

These waters like the molten magma it had drawn before

Managing the tides

While below

Magma was ever still

Making mountains rise

Turning it all inside out

Mixing up with celestial ease

Warmed by sun by space was freezed

Till a place suited for life to appear

As water drawn into vast glacier

Revealed solid rock scraped by the sea’s harsh kiss

Making bold shapes of crags and crevice

Though deep beneath the magma remained

At thin places appeared through veins

In rock to erupt as volcanics forming land

Rich in minerals we understand

Are good for growth of forms of life

That so

Did it grow

Becoming more recognisable as the world we know

But remember I called it Pangaia

One Land

So we had it named

Existing way before man and his dubious fame

Still turbulant earth could not be restrained

And it's form often rearranged

By earth quake and starstorm which it endured

And of which it can never be cured

Perpetual change of this planets form

Perpetual movement that is the norm

Heated by sun and frozen by space

Pummeled by moon drawing metals to it's face

Magnetized by poles that change at will

Peopled by creatures that each other kill

To sustain their bodies by eating each other

Each one requiring a father and mother

And so it goes on through ages rolling

Spinning through space where is it going

Round in eliptoid cycles of time

So I speak of these cycles in rhymes

The dinosaurs roared for such and such million years

(They were my first interest ever my dears)

Oh and how strangely they met their collective death

Their pre-historic prescences just left

Through climate change that only fluffy mammals survived

In little pockets of warm environs did hide

From the freeze I mean what could you do

When the time was right it all pushed through

Glaciers receed and melt the cold assuages

Forming frowns that are actually hill ranges

Worn away by running water and the winds of ages

Life follow in different stages

We hear of them Neathandertal men

Who first appeared way way back when

Dragging a mate by the hair to a cave

In two million B.C. it was all the rage

With stone clubs as the local currency

These lot fitted in with the scene

And life went on much the same

Perhaps life just needed a change

Because this was not all it felt it could be

Cro-Magnon Man people thus come along

With whom we may have much in common

Suddenly present all over the globe

With a large brain and cool cave art to show

They made pots and brought culture

Perceived time in the moon cycles

This was not all they could do!

All of this to earth was new

Quite what went on we can hardly tell

A progression was now possible

And certain Gods could see

What they could become to be

The potential was there within

The human spark seed that could begin

Conscious exploration of it all

The earth space and life universal

That is to say we became aware

Of our surroundings and we dared

With courage and intelligence

To explain with language what we meant

To work together war together

Moving and choosing a destiny

Meeting and making young

Into this prime world flung

Where sabre tooth tigers

And mammoths abound

Perilous place in which they found

The means to survive and even do well

Hunting and gathering in land primaeval

Arranged in social structures

With a mind to work it out

Could be where our greatest advances

And set backs occured

In our formative years

Our seed was set

A mind that could control and cajole and trick

Primitive people were by no means thick

They could organize fraternize fractilize

Forage forget fear and placate

They must have been trippers

With the culture they delivered

Where did it come from

Was it seeded from the stars

Could we get that far

There is much I cannot see

Was never written down in history

Yet this is what I distant see

Bubbling up through history

In the brimming crucible of life

Those were heady days indeed in old Sumer

Right next to Africa when they sat together

Suitable weather brought out

Our sense of adventure

And we that is us lot were off

Needing succulent lands in search we went

Sapient man and woman

Seeking innovation sent by inner need

To step out feel and see

New places pouring out of the pot

Travel initiate

Life had a lot to do

Finding itself in all sorts of scrapes

New beasts they found and ate

Or were eaten

Cousins they met and loved

Or gave / were given a beating

What have we got to proove their passing?

Bits of broken monument hidden in the soil

Remains of anchient artefacts in tombs of persons Royal

All that there is

Is not much to see

So we fill in

With imagination based on facts

Rather like these bardic tracts

Lives of women and men

We do what we can

To remember our ancestors well

Yet history lessons taught it that

These people didn't have much going for them

It's almost like they'd been condemned

As something called primitive

As if that was limited

Whose purposes now we can't fully separate

From our own indoctrination of this age

Turning our untrue history page

Moulded by our modern persuasions

Of course I have my own

With which I seed this story sown

With dubious fact but poetic flow

For as a bard I have lies to tell

I have truths truly to give as well

You'll have to work it out where they are

-Maybe ask that falling star

It will make as much sense

As regards which side of the fence

Logic and reason might be sitting

Acting out their reality decisions

Yet on goes the tale for I've made provisions

And much we don’t know for how can we tell

Of these cycles of life who can say well

Let us assume there was vigour and heart

Of another age whose players were part

Of galactic and local plays

Under the sun of different days

Some say we were seeded from space

Some cultures speak of our fall from grace

Where came we from who knows

But we do know that life was here

Yet water locked in glacial ice

Made the sea-water level not so high

So rather than the land sinking

As many people have been thinking

It was that the sea rose up

Overflowed the cup

That had been the known world

Many times this had occurred

Until the more modern world

We have called Atlantis

From the God Atlas who sleeps there in stately bliss

It was place of high science

And society refined

Till bad crystal magic led to decline

Not that the land fell

Consumed by the Santorin eruption of Crete

Which is how they tell it

Placed neat somewhere in the Mediterranian

Yet conversly I hear that the waves rose

As we know

All this can happen again

Plato had it from scribe Solon

Whose source was the

Careful Egyptian priests

Who would not an error have made

Concerning the whereabouts of

The lost continent and where it was laid

Most likely tales that reach us

Are from that volcanic distruction at Crete’s Knossos

Confused through times

As storytellers are inclined

With their adornments of another ages catastrophy

Adding to the mystery

With touches of orichalcum and gold

From a different disaster recalled

But Atlantis is of Atlas and the Atlantic should it speak any

Where that God and others are said still to slumber hear me

Could not it have been a regular Ice Age ending

Think of all that water it would have been sending

Coursing down channels in the terrain

Land and sea all rearranged

Ice-packed for 50,000 years till 10,000 B.C.

Sea level change a million refugees

Forming roughly the Europe we now know

Ireland and North England had been under glacial sub-zero

Until all this ended and the water it flowed

The seas were lower in ages past

And you could walk all the way over from France

No English channel or North Sea you see

And the lost land of Lyonesee

Streched out to the Scillies

Brittany’s lost land was named Ys

To the west under the sea still connected it is

So only the oldest memories most forgot

Remember of these old time plots

Of now mythologized ground

With no history to be found

Now touched by these old memories begin

The tales that have been saved

Of subsequent Gods takeover

And of the terrible overflowing waves

Enoch was a seer from before the flood

Noah’s great great grandfather it is said

Was taken from Ethiopia through the air whirled west

To a mountain of copper iron gold and tin

Could these have been west coas Atlantean mines he was visioning

Here are found cave homes for Pyrenian and Iberian Megalith raisers

Who had sailed the coasts Trail-blazers

Leaving their calendar stones behind

Astronomical markers for all time

With remains in Britain

As seen similar in anchient Troy

Also along the shores to Sumeria and Persia they are deployed

Could these be the paths of those pre-history folk

Sea-farers geomancers of which Enoch’s vision spoke

Guiding later generations to the metals in the West

Nearby to Avalon which I love the best

Who inhabited these lands where once these people strolled

No recorded word so how can we know

No digi-camera just geology and carbon dating

For accuracy not a very high rating

For sure I count most on dreamtime

Poetic expression is all I can find

But we do have hints and we do have clues

I’ll present you with bardery if you want to chew

Neolithic scientists fit the bill

Cro-Magnon man give me quite a thrill

They seem the rock stars of my old world view

They were not stupid

What couldn’t they do

They had no Mc Donald’s we found no remains

Had atom-power but of a different strain

Pr’haps these old stones were not for sacrifice

But were set up not for this vice

Conducting and channeling the solar light

These old time mathematicians had the angles right

But with another purpose than stocks and shares

They laid out a network that webs all-wheres

With megaliths yer regular standing stones

Or tumuli tombs for holding old bones

Marking the spots and linking the line

Anchient people took plenty of time

Putting these stones up in intricate patterns

Across vast landscapes

They felt it mattered

But not just in one locale all round the earth

These systems strech this wide worlds girth

Lasting way beyond the life of one man

Indicating what?

How can our intellects understand

The workings of another mind and time

Our present science judges and judges unkind

What can it do it cannot comprehend

So with poesy some help it will lend

And speak of dragon-lines that live in the ground

Of serpent power that’s what I found

When I dipped my mind into my life’s eye

John Michell and my dad showed me where they lie

These dragons

One who runs round the globe

The Michael-Mary is how it is known

It would have existed way before the flood

Original geomancy worked in sweat toil and mud

Taking and placing the stones on points

Of earth meridian sunlight to anoint

At certain angles of sky to land

The subtle effect must have been profound

If they went to those lengths to put it all in place

Different cultures and peoples across the earth’s surface

Just think undo the mind if you can

Such were the doings of pre-wheel man

Was it to here that the lizard lords came

From far space with an exploitative aim

To mine our gold but they weren’t all bad

They brought prime DNA too for which we should be glad

Yes the lizard kind in their Death star

The asteroid Niberu had travelled from far

Bearing the usual gamut of characters

For good guys and bad guys they match us

David Icke seems to put them all in one despotic pot

Whose descendants are illuminati and all that dodgy lot

Ruling through royalty banks and multi-nationals

So that to be pro-lizard is unfashionable

Anu the Sun king begat two sons

Prince Enlil and lord Enki were the ones

Sent to earth on a gold seeking jaunt

To mine the whole solar system that they had brought

In an integalactical takeover bid

It was the gold that took off their lid

Once in their blood they could fractilize

Which was their route to space travel

Realize

What this meant to the creatures on the earth at the time

Enslaved to mine gold for them what a crime

Some say they man fashioned in making rooms

Moulds for the creation of sub-human souls

But golems we were with no mind of our own

Till Lord Enki it was who kindness showed

He secretly donated much more DNA

Than any lizard regulations did say

Yet his mum was fey kin from the beginning

In his blood

Tingled the genus that opened the floodOf consciousness expanded to warp speed nine

He didn’t need earth gold to mainline

He got it from source out the dragons mouth

And gave it quite liberally all about

That curious Cro-magnon who appears in many parts

Suddenly on earth with big brain and arts

Superior far to Neathandertol man

In that they could speak and understand

What each other said thus language was born

A culture evolved of a high degree spawned

Enki saw the aptitude of the Cro-Magnon crew

Admired their abilities felt it was due

Something extra for the ape hybrid that he had been ordained

To put in those makin’ shacks to rearrange

With that much more DNA to make a man

Get him livin’ in the greater plan

The benevolent Enki worked it with

The Isu priests who secretly helped cultivate the gift

The light to cast into the future

Evolutionary link life-line producer

To take us through when it gets dark

Producing death-birth resurrection spark

Built to span the apocalypse

Born to go to kiss the lips

Of tomorrow reassured

By dragons nurtured

Fed with the stuff

That dreams are made of

It seems that the risk Enki took paid off

And mankind developed with potential

No supra mortal to be but still exponential

In his aims even with a dark side

It was worth it for the whole ride

We have the innate state within

Due largely to the dragon kin

Who dared look beyond the limitation

To see ourselves as really one

A simple point but it goes far

With repressors this notion jars

But with Dragon DNA we outgrow this criminality

To contain both poles in all reality

Apollo and Dionysius in one game

Full freedom if you were to give it a name

All in a whole what does this mean

Converse authorities staight lace and libertine

Holistic is another term

Ouroboros is the circled worm

Encompassing a consciousness

As danger so close does it press

Knowing as we look into each others eyes

This lizards twinkle is there-surprised?

You would be if you knew how far

We had come since that Nibiru Death-Star

Dropped off their team of initiates

To Earth to graspingly officiate

In running their space travel programme

And what a total jam

That was

Those greedy geckonidae gods

But let’s not worry about them because

Here’s a toast to our benefactor Lord Enki

He allowed us humans potential to be

Such potential is hard to grasp

For those who did so well in class

At competitions to see whose the best

With the biggest score that beats all the rest

Obscuring the greatest wisdom of all

That is our unity beyond any walls

Or divisions so righteously put in place

By so-called benefactors of the human race

With a thousand tracts which most call law

And believing in that fatal flaw

That says women are not good enough

To make the grade

T’was just too much

To let them in

The gates of enlightenment

They could not win

Entrance to where a bold man goes

But here comes the story see as it shows

How one of our competent dragon girls

Made the grade at a date when

Faeries toiled

Yet were sadly foiled

Because they were too female or too young

Now listen this is how it is spun

It was the time of a great assembly

The moment when buddhas first learnt to be

When Shakyamuni Buddha first awoke

It was the lotus sutra that he spoke

But before he could begin to relate

He felt he had to make them wait

Full three times this Buddha had to be implored

For that peoples hearts were seeking he had to be assured

Before he preached out loud for once and all time

The thread that contains the lifestate sublime

Of Buddha-hood in a Buddha land

He is reaching out to lend a hand

Beyond the confines of the mind

Thinking head will never find

We can move through needling insecurities

Even with our impurities

We can make it just as we are

Every man woman and child a star

This dragon girl was there among the most learned disciples

Each of them fully versed in Buddhist text and principle

Awaiting the Thus Come One’s chosen words

Which they could never have imagined or heard

Expecting that they would be the kind

Who quickly would enter the golden mind

Manjushri Maudgalyana Devadatta Shariputra

Were all eager to hear this new Lotus Sutra

Thrice they appealed to him to recount

His great enlightenment to give it out

While billions of beings all bent their ear

Waiting his golden words to hear

And when it came they didn’t get it

Into their intellects it wouldn’t fit

When up came this dragon king’s daughter

It seemed as if the Buddha had already taught her

She stood no chance on three social scores

Namely she was female a lizard and only eight years old

Yet up she flew to the front of the class

Receiving enlightenment fully unsurpassed

Wise men gorped with goggeling eyes

They were gobsmacked and full surprised

She had come from beyond their ken

They stood agog these learned men

She excelled the learning of the foremost ones

She had done so since from before time begun

And all were joyed that this was so

For it isn’t what or even who you know

But what’s within that starts the glow

And the gathered disciples and universal throng

Rejoiced in tumultuous story song

That even the dragon king’s daughter had it in her

And that by her example they could all be winners

Buddha cannot be stopped in this life if you choose

And they could all sense the proper use

Of wisdom and learning – not the same thing

Wisdom it comes straight from within

Exceeding austerities of a million years

In this life now it is so clear

Not that at book learning I will make sneers

They contain knowledge that can cut through fears

Wisdom is what fills our tummy grail cup

Garnering knowledge helps sure enough

Most importantly though certain by far

Is wisdom of who you really are

This Lizard girl so well shows us

How it is we are already sussed

As ourselves with no go-between

Unlike philosophies somewhat more mean

That promise it next life and as a man

Before your greater life says you can

Know what it is to live so true

In a universe reflecting you

That was in a time before time

A golden time and we were all there

Worlds within worlds within worlds it as said

Are present in us and the ways that we fare

For at present the seas are higher

But before you could walk straight over to Eire

On what is now the sea bed

It has since all turned on it's head

Yet here it certainly is said

Came the Tuatha d Danaan

Who never die

Eternal spirit the real deal

Fey folk from that Emerald Isle Of song

Who knows where they came from

Did they grow out of the land

Did they leave for Western Isles

Were they really men

What's for sure they were faerie stock

The Dragon Clan to take one look

You could tell it at a glance

As you might well see they're strain today

Quite how it splices

I'm not sure

But there were goings to and fro

And inticements between male and female

Across continents that drew lovers to walk

Or with pack animals they didn't baulk

For need of an air ticket

They went just the free spirits they were

Following love to countries far

Meeting kin with different skin

Loving her and loving him

A true love not political

With motives very far

From grabbing what the other's got

With rulers ruling as despots

For sure there is alot

Of this kind of thing

Done freely in the name of some King

But whose King was it they servedI ask you now do we have the nerve

To remember Gwyn ab Nudd

In his crystalline cave ruling from beneath

Fey King son of Nudd "Silverhand" Nodens

Or Artur our hero he Dragon-Pen

Pendragon Clan of the Brittanic Isles

Descendants selected by Druidic Elders

Kept it all together for a while

King Cymbeline of the House of Camu

Through to Cadwaladr of Gwynedd true

Lineage was held in open court

Before christian persecution brought

The Fey to a time more hidden indeed

Though they persisted in high circles it seems

The Grail Dynasty of Judea

Was not winning the people through fear

King David and Soloman with songs and the harp

Kept the people enchanted their senses sharp

To subtle culture to noble truth

Their Royal blood holds the proof

In memory of their glorious reign

Of sons Ham Japhet and Tubal Cain

Who linked to other Dragon strains

From Egypt's crocodile cult named

Sobek Queen Sobek Nefru

Between her and Maelasanu

Or Melusine of Northumbria from

The Angevin House of Vere of Anjou

As if that means more to you

They linked the chain that does not repress

Queens of the original fey race

Founding Mothers East and West

Linked the blood that knows the best

The Unity of all this hallowed Earth

This is the right of faerie birth

This was the lineage on one side

The other just as anchient

Was from the origin in Gypsy-land

Which brings me round to Rameses 2

Stood star-mirrored before Cheops

The pyramids three

Aligned with the Orion Belt

Stars that we see

Nile culture we have arrived at

The age of the Pharaohs

Eye of Horus with heavy kohl

Such a magnificent vast magic world

Where serpent power crystals are coiled

Temples made of coloured glass

Initiations through which to pass

Thoth of libraries scribes and word

Speaks the truth and weighs the souls

Against the feather on the scales

Sacred baboons watch and tithe the result

That Ibis-head Thoth has dilligently judged

While juror vulture assessors eagerly await their

Meal of blood from evil Wraiths

Unfavoured in the balance

So it was at the Temple of Esna

Where Ma-at Truth Goddess

Was she who would recieve

Those who had not wronged

Too bad it seems

Just as Ammut-Apophis

Hyena-Hippo-Crocodile God

Ate the souls and consigned wicked ones

To eternal hell

Just as well

The priest scribes like Ani Hunefer and Nekmertuwef

Actually knew more than the King

And so like the bards of another time

They could depose him

Like King Khufu and his scribe Djedi Whom he kept on his toes

Most of the time didn't he

And from this cult the faerie line

At Tuna el Gebel near Petosiris's tomb

Thousands of mummified baboons attest

To the fey baby boom it was began

And at 8 roaded Khemnu where Thoth had a girl

The consort Nehmataway

Let in the incarnations of fey

Channel in to the world in the Dog Star Days

And from this cult the faerie line

Was first on this side defined

Fathered Mothered

And formally founded for all time

The Egyptian/Phoenician

Fey descent Dynasty Divine Intervention fractilator facilitators

For faerie seed

The need of the Earth

All it's shining worth

Not to be lost

Not at any cost

A truth bloodline

Another kind

To the murderous userpers

In a deceptive guise

But the lineage fine

Is somewhat sublime

And often for safety

Has seemed to hide

More like been obscured

By something more cruel

But it's all see thru

Political fools

Forced to comply

With a governance not

Of the highest notch

Basically a botch job

A hack and slay campaign

A succession of bloody reigns

Seemingly the same

Fighting wars

Making the cause

For more

Of the same insane

Profanity!!

It is a line that has strayed from the truth

For I can tell there was a day

Once when the way

Was laid on the land

'Twixt cross and barrow the straight track spanned

Of etheric lazer-like pulse in a line

Conscious connected

As within the Self so elsewhere found

The lines lay straight

True to Sun and Moon

Now laying in wait

To again remember the old tune

Of a time when perpetual choir

Sung enchantment for governance higher

A raised vibration held up

By monks at acu-points

In the great circles around White Leaf Oak

And Saffron Waldon like spokes

They took it in turns to chant I don't joke

Tuned in the people to a frequency

That quite simply caused harmony to be

Another world view exists now

Amid techno-cultures constant row

Has done for that sublime science

Exept where defiance

Such as that which I do

Can recall somehow the other world view

A view that envelopes

All that has developed

Even of this so-called progress and what it costs you

You know what those clever pixies used to do?

They made labyrinthes that map the self

-I count that as something that helps-

Even the Minotaur within

Can be matter for a grin

These mazes are made

The true self to display

From Fayyum to Crete to the Tor's terraced sides

You bet therein a portion of Grail resides

For it was that original blood that made these puzzle lairs

Don't you think that it's unfair

That others came along and put on the mantle

All good dismantled doesn't that rankle

The faerie ranks were not preturbed

But something was coming that was even worse

And that was the work of the Roman Catholic Church

Originally set up in A.D. 44

By Constantine 1 Holy Roman Emperor

This was the name of the Godman

Who one time had a dream in form

Of a battle plan

To fight under the sign of the cross

So began his Empire’s people to accost

And converted to Christendom the whole lot

Went forth and slaughtered in the name of Christ

It was the first time it wasn’t very nice

Such a conversion job was so complete

With built in state approval so neat

Over the years this sort of thing grew

Now it was a most fashionable thing to do

With the name of Jesus to convert you to

This new religion of the cross

And if they couldn't get this across

Then it was a sorry loss

Of life and limb

Or wife and children

Of normal people caught between

The empire and the church machine

Soldiers searched for dissidents

Through centuries growing persecution

Raped and pillaged burned and maimed

In Son of God Jesus's Holy Name

Branded this new religion

On the poor of the world

Such a sorry sorry game...

In England where the true heart lay

Since Joseph of Arimathea came this way

Uncorrupted and with Jesus made

The first wattle church at Glastonbury

Folk understood their Levantine teachings

After all it was with druids they had been speaking

And you could say they were pleased

To greet the age of Pisces

But what later came to be

Was down right evil trickery

Their pure motive was undermined

By warlords and the pious kind

Who contrived to use the new holy creed

To satisfy their power crazed greed

Authority got on the faith bandwagon

And wholesale culled that anchient dragon

All Giants as well they eradicated

Till all memories of Albion dissipated

And dedicated themselves instead to the Great God War

Made the Crusades a whole lot more

Converting what they termed infidel pagan jew or heathen

To the new cult of bible believing

It sorted out the heretics

Ran rout all the peace-niks

Messed it up good and proper

Then they took out the Mother

Father Son and Holy Ghost

Where now the Matron loved the Most

Vaigued out with several Marys

One a prostitute

Cut out of it like the pagan crone Ceredwin

The old religion was abused and done in

The faerie line had been forgot

Fought over exiled feared dead or lost

And imposters in their place instead

Ruling by oppression

Lies and fraud

Aided by high governmental laws

Was to be deplored by those of faerie genes

Yet they continued behind the scenes

To mingle in the Courts

And hold positions such as they aught

Where it counts say with the druids

Or classy witches or the famille Languedoc

Working in a world by fascists ran

Deplored by fey because it is so removed

To the gardens that they were used to

And yes to know perhaps again

For they have got intoConstantine's son's son's brain

And that's a story being spun

Let's make it there for everyone

So for a while the Societas Draconis

Carried on pseudo-Royally taking the piss

With no patron Saint but abadge he permits

A red cross in a circle the Rosi Crusis

Twenty three nobles with a Vampire his wife

The Hungarian Pretender was living the life

And he lived it long and he lived it bad

Till he with highest honours duly was clad

Such a dazzling lineage was born for priviledge

And Pope Eugene IV welcomed him to the fold

Such a primer offender he had enrolled

Sanctified in so Holy a Name

So as to continue the killing game

The witch hunts scourged

Ducked burnt and murdered

Any with a hint of a craft not Christian

In a trans-european inquisition

All remnant of faerie

Was hunted and questioned

Brainwashed and imprisoned

Scorned with derision

Outlawed and ridden

From the land so the state hoped

But it just went to ground

With appearance turned round

Continuing in corners

Without too much sound

For centuries in fact

'Cos you can't stamp it out

What grows deep beneath

The Earth has bequeathed

It's children with fastidiousness

And century by century

They worked a way out of the mess

But just for a while

Let us consider the Lady of Carlisle

With family closely related to Melusine

And the House of Anjou

Through the Elven blooded Sailor

Phillip whose love was so true

Two suitors of note she had

This Lady Emily of Carlisle

The Sailor and a Soldier

Of High rank and file

Whose ardour was comparable to

A great blazing fire

The two of them came before Emily straight

Spoke of their love did not hestitate

Each said their love was the greatest of course

But Emily said "Get on your horse"

She rode for three days

With these two lusty men

Till they came up outside the Lion’s Den

He shall have me who gets this if he can

And into the cave she flings her fan

The soldier he falters saying his love is great

But he was late for an appointment and so he left

The Sailor said nothing but brought her fan back

She flung herself on and that is a fact

Such Love that Dares

Such Love to Trust

Is Evidence sure

Of Faerie Lust

Conceived immaculate

Between the Worlds

When did it first occur

Beyond the North Wind

There were lands

Where descendants of the Danaan

Faerie line of the Western Sidhe

Dragon Kings of Anu

Of Hyperboria the Hesperides

To Hibernia the Emerald Isle where the Lea Fal

Stone cries out when touched by the true King

Bringing out the light truth ringing

From where hidden in some mortal breast

It seems that theStone knew best

Which key to governace felt correct

By a communion with union

For all walks and sorts

Within enchantment caught

When of such Oneness we are taught

With all things living

All things dead

With the lovely fragile earth that feeds

All plants animals creatures creeds

That here on earth have birthed it seems

And praise to those wonderous reptilian Queens

Without whom we would never have been

Founders of dynastic lines

From far before recorded times

Through Scytian Scota that Dragon Princess

With Maelusina the Line it was blessed

She formally founded the Dragon Clan true

Such a line remembered the oneness

Inherant in every prayer

Penetrating every layer

It formed the format for governance fey

Through enchantment incanted with old mystic lays

Enrapturing folk not leading astray

But tuning to frequency Radio Sidhe

Encircling the spheres with that Love shining through

Ley creating site to site

Linking anchient me and you

Working with the Dreamtime

And singing on the Dreamline

Using it to walk through fears

This old time music of the Sphere’s

Piercing through the dull mind

Undoing the Doldrums

Holding recourse to the Law

Held by careful royal Claws

Whose grasp is unlike those of the Law that presently stands

Like that dragon in the middle of the Strand

No, it is that venerable mystical Angevine beast

Whose holy inspiring flames have not ceased

To influence well from behind the scenes

Causing cultures aloft upon Dragon’s mesmerizing wing

To be bourne in long forgotten age

Of which I’ll remind because I feel it sage

To take us back from where we begun

But I don’t think I can role call everyone

Or exactly who begat who. It’s lost it’s gone

Geoffrey of Monmouth had access to anchient tracts written down

And gave us his bardically splendid history of all British crowns

But these tracts are not traceable

So we must assume it somewhat fanciful

But hats off to him anyway for having a go

In referring to these old Kings

One might wonder what it brings

To discourse on the faerie kind

Were not those Monarchs bang out of line

Killing to claim the throne from fear

Holding only power dear

It’s the impression one can get from these guys yet

To tar them all with the same brush is too much

Some were free thinkers to boot

Some made rhyme and some played the harp or lute

Some such sovereigns did their best and ruled fairly fair

Most of course they just didn’t care

Yet the stories of common people

Would be just as much a tale

For sure as day the Sovereign Law

They might well regale

For sure the Sovereign statutes

Are not open for dispute

Does it taste much like oppression

And make you feel minute

Compared to that Draconic Law

I did make mention of it’s flaw

For even though these

Royal Pretenders have ruled since time out of mind

It doesn’t mean that they can or will do forever and all time

Yet whether their effect was wicked or benign

It was felt and that said

Felt all the time

Those Regal ruling Royals of some or other line

Notice how that strain of beneficial faeridom blood

Has flowed often in such terrible flood

When those Kings have decided it so

But they could never tax to death that ever living soul

Of the original and mystical

Tuatha de Danaan

Bold beyond fear

Always near

None of this us and them

We’re all in this together though not everybody knows

At least wicked oppressors keep you up on your toes

So such a tale involving kings will I balance

A little steamed up with fey romance

Reflecting all the world of everybody told

Feudal Peasants who till the Earth

Revolting for bread’s worth

I shall be hinting

A trace of faerie seed glinting

Our need of seed

To get us through times unprecidented

In a world that’s gone demented

But for now I’m staying before history

In Irish myth and mystery

When legendary Conn his crown so publically claimed

When he touched the stone it King he named

To a pure white mare he was led

And upon that Mare he was duly spread

Till such sport as it was that they made

Conn’s Kingly credentials were well and truly displayed

Before the villagers from all around the land

Gathered for a performance of such Royal Command

The rain fell down the people left

Leaving just the Mare and Conn who wept

That pure white mare got up and changed

Into Danu of the Daanan became

This gave Conn a considerable boost

She was more the kind of lover he’d choose

Danu informed him of the duties of Kings

Of Bran Finn Mc Cool and Cu Chullain Of Emain Macha and the

Warrior Northern tribes

Of love war and of people and of ruling their lives

She spoke of Ceridwen and her remarkable pot

That cauldron of Annwn where the whole lot

Of them Kings could be cast

In four circles deepening where they would fall fast

Through the worldly forms of Abred harsh

To Gwynfed in heaven’s pure light to bask

So to Ceugant where the creators are

It’s a long way back if got this far

Now the cauldron is bubbling all is dark mist

Danu departs leaving Conn with a kiss

Suddenly all this is left behind

And what is this that he finds

In a spinning castle of towers he suddenly is sat

And notices this blue robed poet cat

It is Taliesin Shining Brow in Caer Sidid singing

He that bard chanting a tale to explain

Telling of oneGoddess Macha from a place called Emain

Whose Goddess name had been taken in vane

By boast of a foolish mortal husband

Too boozed to be urbane

Thought not what his words would exact

In the least

When he claimed at feast

That she could beat

The chariots of their noble King

For once said at court it had to be done

Macha bore two children in her womb

She won the race but he children died

And mourning their she openly cries

On the men of Ulster she places a curse

For these warriors elite and full brave

It was the worst

To loose all their strength and yes by my leave

They couldn’t even pick up a cabbage leaf

This set their military aspirations back

The army now had a somewhat lack

Of warriors weakened and off their war

Unable to defend their huge fortress walls

To what primal power can we hold this due

‘Tis the power of the Mystic Tri-Goddess so true

Of the Maiden Mother Crone

Much is made though little known

The constant theme of poetry

Causing us to blindly see

The Matrix not the celluloid one

That links us up where we come from

Kings and Bards and People

From the place where all is equal

And who, tho’ wars rend us apart

Is still the lone subject of this art

Bequeather of Kings

Behind all things

Enveloping all in her charms

Of ice and fire. Be alarmed!

Knower of men's minds

Bestower well inclined

To nurture and to chide

Hear Her call inside

Your ear

No fear

Is so opaque to obscure her

There is no cure for her

Love will get you eventually

Though you reject her

Have no names for her

Or only those to revile

While all the while

She made you, with some horn-led

Consort tangled and met

Till this world was set

Now you know don’t forget

She spoke in the ears of those Kings of old

And so this story will unfold

One Bran of whom you have heard

Once set sail to that other world

Close to this one though far away

A stulwart crew there made their way

And met Mananan Ocean God

Tending all his fishy flocks

In his chariot of two wheels

He said he drove through grassy fields

That Bran would as the sea perceive

But it wasn’t make believe

He told Bran that land lay further

Towards the world’s edge where

The Isle of Women surely lay

So Bran reached it after some days

And spent time there out of mind

Where one day on some bank lying

The Mother spoke into his ear

‘It was I who enticed you here

If you would be a wise ruler

It’s best not to act a fool yeah

Keep in touch at all times

Listen to such bardic rhymes

That tell of laws that flow mystic

It wouldn’t do if you missed it

From this peaceful Isle your precepts take

Please do not make a mistake’

Now have I got it jumbled up?

As when Artur quested for the cup

That mighty cauldron holy grail

Another quest of setting sail

To Annwn this time this thing to find

To four castles they were determined

Yet four times they quested four time returned

Only seven each time lived and learned

This grail was not an easy prize

And they paid for it with their lives

These are levels of the Underworld

Such as that castle that twirls

Cair Sidin where Taliesin sits

Recounting tales-surprised at this?

This is the Castle of Spirals where Gwyr was chained

So it is his sorrow in tale remains

Next from the Castle of Revels exept seven none returned

To Castle of Rulers save seven none lived and learned

The Glass Castle of Treasures

Claimed all pleasures

It’s swarming sentinels slew till all but seven remained

Yet so it is we know their names

Men of no courage merit no praise

And Arthur’s quest is a well known lay

For the cauldron is warmed by virgins nine

Encircled with pearls and sorcelled with rhyme

Such quest for a King was a goodly thing

Yet they could not it from Annwn bring

Now I cannot rightly applaud the King’s virtues

If you met them they might well hurt you

The Celtic race loved war and killing

It is what they found the most fulfilling

In life where honour was a death bravely met

This ‘Peace not War’ hadn’t caught on quite yet

It was what they knew this warrior lot

Trained to be so straight from the cot

Fearful of gods who smote from the sky

They stuck to their meade and didn’t ask why

But clever and caring also they were

With great homemade clothes and masses of hair

Up in braids with whiskers and beards

If they walked your High Street you would have thought’weird’

But give them their due, they came before you

We’re not here to judge unless you have

They delighted in war yet were high nomadic culture

Half hunter gatherer half agriculture

A balance perhaps donoting

Though I’m not promoting it

That war was somewhat how contained

As in nature’s animals who prey

Grown from nature’s selective ways

But coming were new days.

If we imagine the grande landmass of pangaea uncovered

Then some details we will discover

As to how tribes moved about

Exploring the receeding edge of the great glacier

And the expanding coast they were pioneers

Some were heading North some say from Troy

On the way holy dolmen deployed

These goidelic dialect tribes

Round 600B.C. arrived

In the much larger landmass of what was Europe

The ice though had receeded and given more landscope

Atlantis long gone

But they travelled by boat

Phoenicians are known as sea trading folk

And round to some islands they’d often float

From the ancient sea to the Hesperedies

Into the inlets and round to the towns

It was the best way around

Been goin on for hundreds of years

Was going on still at the time of Christ

Though then by me the times turned not nice

But I’ll tell of one Joseph of Arimethea

Who in AD44 struck the Thorn staff right here

On Wearyall Hill

Where that Thorn stands still

He’d come before oh yes several times

From Palestine once with his nephew

Christ

Sailing with the fine metal merchants up the Bristol channel

Founding next the first wattle chapel

In Glass Isle Glastonbury

For sure as the Lord was at Priddy

He opened the age of Pisces

Hoping all would as christ see

And healing and dialogue offer

If you would prefer

To live as a simple chrestian man

The Druids they knew him

The zodiac drew him

The age it exploded in war and in strife

Yet note that each Christmas the Thorn blossoms quicken

Unlike the Thorn that comes from that way

Yet bear in mind the times

Romans liked their lines

Square villas they were killers

They conquered all over

And paved such straight roads

That fore-folk had made of their ways a going

And marched vast armies to the ends of the earth

A sucession of Caesars many of them mad

Made great use of the tax they could have

In the end overshot but that’s how it goes

But they’d romanised everywhere and then they did go

Leaving ungoverned Anglophiles and picture faced picts

Wondering now how the picture would fit

Bashing each other till Saxons an Jutes and Vikings

Came from all Angles to the Isle of the Angles

Now the Anglo-Saxon Chronical was written

By monks who at the time were living

Recording annual events and stuff

Vortigen crops up as a chief of great fame

Though maybe it is a generic name

For a warlord in the cant of that time

Which was A.D.430ish we can surmise

Arthur was 5th century if he was at all

Though whether called King is debateable

He rallied against the invaders with sucess

Got laid and had stress

These themes of Kings that I here begin

Is a partial historic obsession, I put it in

Because I’m following a track

By looking back

See where it comes from

Where it goes to

Of how people ruled

And what we can do

To rule our own lives

So to survive

In this day and age

Are the leaders so sage?

Plato idealised the Philosopher Kings

Guardians whose long education would bring

Leadership pure from their perfected minds

A temperament tempered with wisdom refined

Who studied stars wind sea and season

To sail ship-city Kallipolis with reason

Yet what of the wisdom of the common little folk

Was it not the King’s that their Queen invoked?

I spoke of a line

A lineage fine

How was it defined

If you ask me I’m inclined

To point out the fey

And in this way

We will all decide

Kings and Queens well perhaps they’ve got it

But as we know they tend to the despotic

But some had poise as we shall find out

They weren’t all Right Royal Louts

Bran appears in both Ireland and Wales

And of course features in many a tale

He sailed over to England

His head is here still

Prophesying and dreaming

Beneath Tower Hill

Where the Ravens are cawing

Keeping England itself

Where our taxes appaling

Keep the rich with the wealth

‘Render unto Caesar’ we have heard it before

Uniting all Prydain by giving it war

Yes there were Druids

Some of them Lords

Know that they governed

With mystic wards

Warrior-menders

Before Roman time

The druids remember

They passed the law down

In great schools of learning

Bards were put to task

The beth-luis-nion

Alfa-bet to grasp

A thirteen moon calender

Well did they comprehend

Ancestrally aquainted

Tribal Memory they retained

They knew genetic stories

Of who and how begun

They also knew the science

Of the turning of the sun

They knew when solstice and equinox

Time it would arrive

They kept the Celtic memory banks

Very much alive

Then Kings could not rule a life

Without approval of a wife

A Queen must authorise a King

Before his reign it could begin

Ceremonial acts did mark

Summer winter light and dark

Letters took from twigs on tree

Bard Ovate and Druidry

Three it is a holy trine

Oak and Ash and Thorn. Sublime

Four times seasons turning round

Intoning of the holy sound

All over Europe did they live

Guiding law they had to give

There is talk of sacrifice

Blood on altars not so nice

Bear in mind the length of time

Druids had kept up their rhymes

Had they placed the megalith

Who can really answer this

For sacrifice they were not made

Druids by then in retrograde

Romans came and ran them rout

Cared not what they were about.

The last stronghold of Druidry

At Anglesea was held

When Emperor Suetonius said

To smash those stupid Celts

The legionaires were frightened

As they stood upon the beach

With women dashing through their ranks

And gnashing of their teeth

With flaming brands waved in their hands

Like dread haired banshees on the sand

Druids raised up arms to pour

Improcations on all their war

At first the troops froze at this sight

But General Paulinius rallied them outright

‘Quail not at frenzied females

You are the Emperor's men

Raise your standards strike hard now

Don't be disquieted by their row’

So they smote resistance temples glade

I suspect it was a road they made

So ended much that's gone for good

Roman ambition obviously would

They wrapped the fortress

In a red shroud of flames

Who can now remember their names

At Anglesea the druids were dead

Into the sea their memory bled

In their wake the Romans left quite a mess

And here starts the Legend of Arthur no less

He history and myth a full potent blend

Could be Britain a little he did mend

Roman-tisised to the Hilt

Yet last seen floating to Avalon

Like Bran his prescence lives on

Is not far away

Some might say

Now from this point and without delay

I shall do a little resume

Of what Kings we have had

In these English like parts

Perchance to percieve their faults and their arts

It’s all very rough but I don’t care a jot

There’s bits missing and it has no plot

In the run up to Artur according to Geoffrey

Things had started with Brutus from Troy

With the phoenix flames

Of his city he came

100 years after it’s terrible fall

Alighting at Totnes to be our first royal

His name some say is the Brut in Brit

Though many would not agree to it

After some scuffles so Britain began

Though Europe too descends from this man

Also eponymous was the next one Locrinus

Who lodged it as Logres

Which is also a name

I’m sure there are many

Would make that claim

Now I’ll run through quite quick

Some names I think stick

Like Maddan Mempricius

Bladud and Leir

The Celt Queen Cordelia

King Cymbeline

Ferrex and Porrex

Belinus Brennius

Oenus and Cap

Eldol Redon

Pir Heli and Lud

Some they were people

Some they were God

Arviragus the Welsh was he who gave hides

To Joseph when he sailed to these Isles

Then the Romans came west

To take all the rest

We had Severus Geta

Allectus and Coel

Constantine I, II and his son

Look though for yourself

I’ve not named everyone

Vortigern Vortimer

Aurelius Ambrosius

All came in their time

To rule and annoy us

Till Artur Pendragon

Hacked out the line

Though he did not seem like

Quite the faerie kind

But we all know his son

Artur the famous

But now to the throne

There were so many claimers

Kings of Wales and Scotland

Wessex and Mercia

I wont get the story too confused here

Vortiporus and Malgo

Cadvan and Cadwallo

Keredic Conanus and

Cadwallader of Gwynedd

All of them rulers all of them dead

At this point in about A.D.70

The Danes to the east were getting weighty

And chose to take on the Angular Isle

So they brought their boats with horses inside

Tried several times to oust settled tribes

So to Brut/Brit/Logres that Angle Isle

Viking wing helmets came and were vile

Saxons more southerly laid in as well

Such invaders were not placatable

Used Jute mercinaries who were obstinatly themselves

But up for a ruck they all made merry hell

Until after sucessive wars engaged

We ended up talking the Anglo-Saxon language

In this mellee Artur came to light

He surely put up a pretty good fight

And went marauding abroad

As well it is thought

A whole list of battles were progressivly fought

But live by the sword so die by the sword

Till there are only lost memories a fragment of words

Of what blood was lost all on the green sward

Britain was a mass of Kingdoms

For many Kings renowned

That is until the Lion Ecbert showed up

‘Bretwelda’sole ruling crown

Offa King of Mercia had exiled him one day

Sent Ecgbert to the court of Charlemaine

Exiled all the way to France

Yet he got his second chance

Was recognised on his return

As the right and truthful one

He took on the Mercians

And Ellendun battle won

When North Humbrians accepted him

Britain’s first King he’d become

Ecgbert’s son was Aethelwulf

Who had been sub-King of Kent

In 839 he assumed the throne

As his father meant

Viking raids were kicking off bad

Aethelwulf fought back with what strength he had

Yet a religious and a caring man generous it seems

With wife Osburga begat five sons

And so worked out some means

That the eldest one would suceed him

Without sibling rival claims

But son Aethelbald was bad

And while dad pilgrimaged to Rome

He plotted fouly on him

And so usurped the throne

Yet this supremacy was short-lived

He died after years two

And Aethelbert the eldest son

Got his Royal dues

Which was defending Winchester

Where his Royal seat sat

Enduring endless Viking raids

But he truly sent them back

Son Aethelred was next in line

A loving holy man

Fought with his little brother Alfred

As second in command

Beating Bagseg and Halfden Danelords

At the battle of Ashdown

That youngest son of Aethelwulf

Became Alfred the Great

But not before he’d gone to ground

And burnt those silly cakes

That was down in Somerset

In the marsh at Athelney

On the run from Guthorm

Recovering sufficiently

To beat those Danes at Eddington

Yet with them made a pact

That Guthorm became a christian

And he sign a contract

Giving Danes East Anglia bits of Mercia too

This was called the Danelaw

There’s diplomacy for you

Yet Alfred was not just a fighting man

He was a scholar the records tell

He codified the law, prayed much

And loved the arts as well

Translated Latin to the vernacular

So folk could more readily read

Asser his scribe and councillor

Can provide the work you need

To find out more about this

Truly great and noble King

Buried ‘neath Winchester’s trees

Where cathedral bells do ring

Alfred’s heir Was Edward the Elder

And he won back the Danelaw complete

His son was crowned on the King’s Stone at Kingston

Welsh Scots and Vikings at Brunanburh did defeat

That son was Aethelstan who supported the monastries

Where at Malmesbury Abbey his effigy sleeps

Edmund the first was half-brother to Stan

This son of Edward fought the North Humberians

He gave these lands to the Scottish King Malcolm

But was killed Gloucester way by a robber man

Next Eadred of Wessex was Lord overall

Of Northumbria Mercia and the Danelaw

He was so angered by Norse Erik Bloodaxe

Who had installed himself King up at York

Eadred he went and ravaged those Vikings

North of the Humber yet the locals were cool

They expelled Erik for being too bloody

Eadred prayed thanks to God and continued his rule

He died young. He’d always suffered from pains

And also had no children to after him reign

So Eadwig the eldest of the line of Wessex

Was elected therefore the throne to claim

He fell foul of the bishop Dunstan

For seeing a girl during office hours

Though he wed this Aelgifu quite rightly

He died at twenty of a family scourge

Edgar of Mercia and Northumbria

Was brother to Eadwig so got Wessex as well

Peaceful and prosperous his reign was long it was

All other Kings were to him submittal

He revived the church brought back Dunstan from exile

Made him Archbishop his close councillor as well

However his successor his son only twelve at the time

Was murdered by his half-brother’s family claim

So Edward the Martyr at Corfe got his name

This half-brother Aethelred was made Kingv at ten years

Poor council plagued Aethelred so named the Unready

He gave much in Danegeld to keep Vikings tame

But they kept on raiding in spite of the money

He fled to Normandy but was brought back again

Edmund his son was nicknamed the Ironside

He defeated the Danes at Oxford in Kent

But where London chose Edmund

Southampton would have Canute

Ed was routed in Essex by those Viking men

A peace treaty was drawn up where Edmund kept Essex

While Canute got North Humber and Mercia too

Whoever lived longest would have the whole lot of it

But Edmund died quite quick it’s true

The Dane Sven Forkbeard

Deposed his father

Harald Bluetooth Gormsson

To become Denmark's King in 985

He came with Knut his son

Attacking Aethelred's England

Delighting in the Danegold

It was not all they came for

Not all they could provide

As I have said Aethelred fled

And Sven Forkbeard ruled instead

He claimed the throne for five weeks

And then expired was dead

Now at this his son Knut

Went back to Denmark spooked

But gathered forces

To return once again

This was to challenge Edmund

But as I said Ed's death came

And with his Kingship

Knut did for Wessex claims

He took a mistress in Aelgifu

And had a son Harald Harefoot

But then he took a wife

And made another life

He called this boy Hardicanute

Knut's reign was strong and justly based

Secured England from invasion

He was a friend of the church

The people must have liked him best yeah

For he also lies buried at Winchester

Harald Harefoot was made a Regent

And then became a King

He was by rights slipped in the door

His half-brother not around to score

Hardicanute was by then King of Denmark

But at cost for England was to embark

But Harefoot died and Hardi went and took the crown

You can imagine what next went down

Hardicanute was cross because he was the rightful heir

And it cost him lots of bother to get there

So he imposed a 'fleet tax' on the people

To pay for his steep endeavour

Was much disliked soon died and no one cared

Meanwhile

The eldest son of Wessex

Was still in Normandy

Where Aethelred and Emma

Had fled from their duties

This son was Edward who returned

When King Knut was dead

Knut had placed three Wessex Earls

To rule the provinces

These were Leofric Lady Godiva's man

Earl Siward and Godwin dread

Edward used this influence

Now Hardicanute was dead

Through Godwin he had the throne clinched

And his daughter Edith wed

But if this was all looking good

I'd have to take back what I've said

When Edward made up his court

Things did not go down well

Too many of them were Norman friends

Which to a Saxon smells

Godwin and son Harold

Led the anti-Norman coup

Edward snubbed the Godwin's

Including his own wife too

Confining her inside

The monastry at Wherwell

Yet none of this was English sense

As you probably can tell

Fraternising with Normans

Made Earl Godwin full annoyed

Especially when Roberte Champarte

As Archbishop was employed

The Earl rebelled but was expelled

But people felt the lack

Not wanting derision

Edward made revision

And duly let him back

West-Minster Cathedral

Was made at his behest

There was no decision with succession

But soon would come the test

Edward chose Harold Godwin-son

Not his grandson Aetheling

But 1066 was coming up

And that changed everything

Well yo might be wondering at this time

What has happened to this tale of faerie line

Is Pok making some kind of digression

Do we really need this history lesson?

What indeed has happened to the little people

See their anchient grove now sports a steeple

Where are those great earth giants of old?

Slain by Brutus when he first came so bold

For centuries now the line was crushed down

Yet I would not say it was fully out

But hidden in corners pr'haps nursing some wounds

With all this fighting where was the time

To contemplate nature be with the divine

You'll have noticed how some of these Kings were devout

One wonders what they were praying about

And things seem sometimes what they ain't

Such as Edward the Confessor being a saint

What history books serve to preserve

Is not always with the truth concerned

Media of the church and state

Put in place to regulate

Because the system lost it's soul

Taking on a monstrous role

Faerie lines were left behind

Yet read on see the still entwined

William the first son of Robert Duke of Normandy

Born at Falaise at eight he gained the Duchy

He was young with revolts at his door

It took some time his rule to secure

Fancying the English Kingship

He alledged that Edward had felt kinship

This and a promise extorted from Harold

Was what he the English told so bold

They denied him the succesion

He prepared for invasion

Landing soon at Pevensea

He got well dug in at Hastings

While Harold was up North

Fighting Vikings

The decisive battle at Senlac bridge

Was Hastings 1066 of course

So the Norman Conquest it began

With Harold defeated and killed

Edgar Aethling opposed him yet stilled

Amid riots and death and fire burnt homes

William the First took to the Throne

As martial law descended

The King to France absented

Though Bishop Odo of Bayeaux was left in charge

Revolt it featured large

But he stamped out these ingrates

With some violence of the state

And so it was that he went on

Most terrible it seems

Of these military campaigns

Was razing sixty miles up to the North

With not a village left

Just pestilence and death

So much fire and slaughter

Up beyond the Humber border

The land lay barren for fifty years

Famine and disease reigned

Yet Cheftain Hereward remained

Resisting long from a post in High Ely

People were stripped of their estates

Normans settled in their place

As William took on feudalship of all

He turned much country into deerparks

Introduced the curfew bell

Began the Tower of London

Battle Abbey built

Noteably he compiled the Domesday book

Everyone’s address at a look

So tax and tithe could be sorted out

It was a sign of the times

At war with sons in France

He burnt the town of Mantes

Was injured as his horse

Stumbled in the smoking ruins

He was carried to Rouen

And was buried at Caen

Having died at St. Gervas

Along the way

He left four sons

Of which two became Kings

Had several daughters as well

His wife’s name was Matilda

Daughter to Count Baldwin of Flanders

So the House of Normany was underway

Such a plight it must be

For this plain butchery

Done with the divine right of kings

With god on their side

And violence and lies

More violence and killing it brings

Yet let us still look

At these legitimate crooks

And bear one more line that Bob sings

'Steal a little and they'll

Put you inside a jail

Steal alot and they'll make you a king'

The way things were divided led to problems

When William the first at last did die

William Rufus the Red got all of England

Normandy was Robert’s piece of pie

Henry youngest of the children

Just got five thousand bits of silver

This led to avarice and arrows in the eye

William the Red was cross and blasphemous

He taxed the Church for all it was worth

With his cunning minister Ranulf Flambard

They foxed the barons of their land and wealth

Robert was favoured as King by those barons

But didn’t show up for the show down

They rebelled but were quelled by William’s men

Robert wanted out of town

So he pawned off his Dukedom to Will boy

And went off to Crusade the Holy Lands

What occurred next seems inevitable

Very low and underhand

William was hated by everyone

For he taxed all right up to the hilt

Of course there is contraversy surrounding

The way in which he was killed

An arrow in the eye whilst out hunting

With Henry in the retinue

Perhaps seems a little bit obvious

But nobody really knew

His brothers not around

Henry picked up the crown

Right there and then without delay

He promised good reforms

A hope of course forlorn

When Robert returned in some dismay

In the fight that then ensued

It was Robert that did loose

At the Castle Tinchebrai

Much to his dismay

He was put in prison till his dying day

Now Henry was quite clever

And excelled in the endeavour

Of monetary reform for the crown

Because he was so sharp

He was nick named the ‘beauclerc’

But his skills did not please the papistry

The church it had been rising

A thought perhaps not surprising

Considering monies it received

From rich and poor

Clergical appointments

Henry saw fit to sell

This holy privatising

Didn’t go down well

Pope Pascal the second

Threatened excommunication

Henry wouldn’t get to heaven

If he carried on like this

The King said he would change

But only his words rearranged

And went on much as he had before

In conferring sacred offices

He rescinded his authority

That is the Divine Right of Kings

The Pope reckoned him as secular

And subservient nothing more

An uneasy split from a greedy flaw

Henry’s only son was drowned

When the White Ship went down

So he had no male heir to make a King

His daughter by wife Adelaide

Was the only card that could be played

So he recalled her from Germany

And married her to Geoffrey of Anjou

A political move of course

Because with France he was at war

With King Louis the Fourth

He could placate or give defiance

With an Angevine alliance

But when Geoffrey wanted castles

He said no

So began a second stupid inbred war

This one with a his own brother in law

Henry died is it not sad

To have so much and end so bad

What is it with these Kings

See what it is their action brings

At war with relatives and sons

Cannot be the best one

The result of all this killing

Surely is not soul fulfilling

That there seemed no other way

No little hints of life more fey

Where oh where could it be

Such is our sad history

Emperess Matilda or Maude

Must have felt like a political pawn

She was married off to two men

Nowhere near her age

The first was Henry the Fourth

Of Germany this was

He was titled Holy Roman Emperor

When he died she had to go back

To England because it lacked

Any other heir to the Throne

To Geoffrey the Fourth Count of Maine and Anjou

Her father made her say I do

Though he was eleven years her junior

And they had to proceed with due care

His emblem featured the planta genesti

The Broom plant the Plantegenet crest see

Of which I would ask please take good note

It’s one of the reasons for which I wrote

They didn’t get on at first

But things got better not worse

She did three sons begat

All were pleased at that

Their names were Henry Geoff and Will

When her father met the children

He argued with their dad

And that is what led to their little war so sad

When her father died

She probably did cry

But soon she had to lead the country on

Yet usurping his oath

Her cousin Steven no sloth

Was quick to steal what was not his

Probably at this while

She was pregnant with child

In Anjou unable England to go

But as soon as she could

She made well and good

And a long civil war began did ensue

Robert of Gloucester helped Matilda

Or her cousin would have killed her

And at Beverston Castle they did win

This was up in Lincon

Steven they imprisoned him

The title Queen she did not wish

But ‘Lady of the English’

Or Empress but the Pope did not like that

But she was haughty and arrogant

Which the English couldn’t tank

Manners maketh man and woman it seems

Even if you are a King or a Queen

So her rule came to not much at all

Steven later got free

Causing Matilda to flee

Oxford in a white cape in the snow

She went to Wallingford

She’d made such escapes before

Such as disguised as a cadaver

In their Civil war palava

When she had to flee Devizes

A girl full of surprises

But Rob of Gloucester soon was dead

She had to go to France instead

Steve of course took the Throne and sat there

Yet Maude’s eldest showed up the natural heir

He had an army in tow

Which changed things so

The Treaty of Wallingford was written down

Stating who would wear the one Royal Crown

Matilda went back to her own court in Rouen

Maybe she just couldn’t stand it too long

When she died she was buried in the Cathedral

Here’s what is written if go there you will

‘Here lies the daughter mother and wife of Henry’

And as epitaphs go it’s much better than many

These Queens were hardcore they lived it to the max

Giving birth to dynasties and dealing with the cracks

In their hearts or in the courts that they had made

There lives had held much fear and joy also love and dismay

Is it a bit of dragon line coming from old Anjou

Does it stare us in the face as I tell their tale to you?

Born at le Mans to Matilda and Geoffrey

Was Henry first King of the Plantagenet line

He married Eleanor of Aquitaine

And added her empire to his own tracts of land

The barons were trying to overcome Royalty

So he tore down their castles and smashed the revolt

Now a Knight could still show his loyalty

He could pay scutage and be a vassal of court

Mercenaries were bought when Knights themselves off

Now this was what the armies were made of

There was much quelling of Normandy

Fighting with the Queen’s ex the King of France

After years of Norman style Trial by Combat

Trial by jury once more had a chance

Textbook common law it was invented

Which very much the church resented

Because their power was undermined

There was a dispute big time

Thomas a Becket was the church spokesman

Once friend to Henry and Chancellor

Also Archbishop in Canterbury Town

In the end he was killed by assassins

In his own Cathedral cut down

Henry had been angry but never wanted this

Four over eager knights did the job

Excommunicated but he got back in again

Was penanced by the church

Who set their terms to work

Henry pilgrimaged to Normandy

Was flogged nude in public in his own town Avranches

Henry had sired many sons on many women

And there were problems with what to give them

With the legitimate ones it was very hard

Henry wanted John for King yet Eleanor was for Richard

Geoffrey was jealous and went for his brothers

He failed and Richard attacked Henry

Who died somewhat miserable that Richard had the crown

Not here to underestimate that great lady of Europe

Let us spend some time with her now

Elaine of Aquitaine

Was quite a free spirit it is said

Which makes a difference with this lot

The Crusades were underway by this time

And bringing new ideas over from Palestine

One of these might well be this ‘Courtly Love’

Of which evidence is scant enough

The rules seem to change or to be ad lib

Coming from the troubadours trouvers and poets lips

Breathing words of this fantastic love

Into a court ready to receive it’s fancy

Fantasy to relieve the tedium perhaps

With adultery or near it

Of a most chivilrous kind

Of high action from high mind

Of humility and courtesy refined

A wild times methinks I would suppose

Henry had so many women Eleanor probably lost count

Her mood it was ambivulant which leaves me little doubt

She half recalled an echo in that trouver’s silken song

That entertained a notion of a world not quite so wrong

Or restrained behind the bars of court imposed marriage

Of love that could go on in someone else’s carriage

Realistic probably consid’ring what was going on

Eleanor had listened to those troubadours for long

I see her sat listening to them telling tales of Peredur

Enthralled by the romance of it always wanting more

Hearing of the graal that Parzifal once dreamed

All in a magic landscape with nothing as it seems

Robert de Boron wrote down the tales already old

In Eleanor’s lifetime at the court they were told

It popularised the tale in a new era reborn

For the stories had origins in pagan times before

When the woman was the one who permitted Kings to be

And marriage was not a thing of eternity

How they must have sighed

And laughed and corred and cried

Flirting with les yeux d’amour

It was considered love’s highest form

Eleanor allowed the Grail to shine

Revealed it to us for all time

She heard how Joseph brought it

After years of imprisonment

To Glastonbury where a church set up

First communion with the blessed cup

Resonating through the years

The Grail responds as we revere

Purification with this vase

Was needed if a court decays

The Grail was symbol of holy grace

For God to heal you face to face

Eleanor’s life was long and crazy

With five sons she wasn’t lazy

Imprisoned fifteen years

For plotting against Henry

She grew sick of his philandering

Wasn’t having any

Went all the way to Spain across the Pyranees

When she was in her seventies

Outlived most of her sons

She really was a one

There had been unrest for decades

Infidels from Persia causing outrage!

Constantine’s mother Helena was

Convinced she had found the original cross

At the site Golgotha where Jesus was crucified

This indeed was a place to be sanctified

So was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built

In Jerusalem pilgrims could travel as they willed

For Constantine protected the terrain

He had made everyone Christian

Yet about the time of Artur in the West

So Mohammed also did rise to the East

In 638 Islamic Champions took Jerusalem

Antioch and Alexandria where Caliphs became

Controllers who to begin with were tolerant

To the Christians they behaved most clement

It could have been a risky road for to tread

But Caliph Harun al-Rashid gave pilgrims a bed

With Muslim tolerance a hostel did provide

Yet the next Caliph was not so inclined

Hakim destroyed the church persecuted all non Muslims

Said that there was one God and it was him

Persian Seljuk Turks were invited to Bagdad

To all pull together and be big and bad

To become Sunnite Islamic Champions

And take on the Shi’ite rulers Egyptian

Byzantium fell (That’s Istambul now)

Asia minor was closely followed

Soon Jerusalem was taken by Turkish men

Into this new Seljuk Syria of Saracens

Alexius Comnenus took the Byzantiam throne

A cunning man I think he to be shows

By playing one Turk off on another

In power games so he didn’t have to bother

They made their own wars amongst themselves

This for Christian pilgrims didn’t bode well

The treacherous road was now much worse

With bandits and infidels interspersed

But it came to the attention of the church

Who of course could not leave them in the lurch

Something had to be done

Hearts and minds to be won

Inspired by St. Augustine’s idea

Of penitential warfare

Pope Gregory the Seventh

Said Knights could kill and still get to heaven

God would see that you were let in

By setting up a Holy war to absolve the sin

The plan was to reunite the Eastern Byzantium Christians

With the Roman Catholic Church end the schizm

Between Constantinople and Rome

You can see where it’s going

Rome spoke latin it was greek in the east

How can an Empire run with two main seats

Doctrinally aided slow strangulation

Led to a mutual excommunication

East and west disparate Christians

Could be united in a common mission

Brought together to save the Holy Land

From that horrid different Turkish man

That Pope pledged he would lead himself

An army of Western Knights to help

Byzantium, (by then Constantinople that is)

By force to get rid

Of those un christian hordes

That were so deplored

Soon to the council of Piacenza

The King Alexius sends a

Message that military aid is needed

This Pope Urban II conceeded

And comes up with this prime propogandum

Carefully worded murder absolution

‘Deus le volt’ cried the mesmerized crowd

‘God wills it’ Now they were allowed

Back along William the Conqueror

Had had to do penance for

All the raping and pillaging

Not forgetting all the killing

That made the Norman Conquests

But the Crusades brought out the best

Solution to all that belligerant testosterone

In need of soul guidance

Now violence was penance

If you slaughtered a Persian

And this new version

Brought them in like hordes

It was perfect the church needed a way

To say that violence was OK

Because the knights and kings were mad for it

The clergy could not call it interdit

There was too much to gain for one thing

But you couldn’t besmirch the Name and bring

Dishonour and property loss to the Christian Church and State

And those Turks were worse than Heathens for goodness sake

The point was that the church was split in its’ power base

Between Byzantium and Rome in this case

The Vatican must have felt rather insecure

By preaching they whipped up a Holy war

Which is now called the first Crusade

Let us survey the some of the mess they made

Crusaders converged in Constantinople

Answering the Authority of the Pope’s call

Alexius shipped them over the Strait of Bosporus

They had the Anatolian Mountains to cross

But first sieged Nicaea it was a Turk stronghold

But Alexius wouldn’t let them take full control

Dorylaeum they routed with a hard knock

Then over the crags in the push to Antioch

They split up different routes to take

Each a little Holy war would make

Once through Asia Minor they were in Palestine

And so began the pentinance divine

Edessa was captured by Baldwin of Boulonge

He had come through Armenia and purloined

A Princess from there, was made King

The people seemed to want him

This was the first Crusader State

Almost handed like on a plate

Antioch took nine months of siege

And bribery before it was siezed

All Turks were slain

And there were still lain

When the armies of Mosul came and besieged

The besiegers and diseases

From rank hacked corpses

Put pay to some and brought morale low

Just then it seemed that Christ himself did show

That Holy Lance that pierced his side

Beholden to Bishop Adhemar of Puy’s eyes

In the Church of Saint Peter

That first patriarch believer

That preached in Antioch

Right here on the spot and in that plot

As true as Matthews gospel was written hereabouts

It must have come into his mind and given him no doubt

It was a sign from God of divine will

That they must their Crusades fulfill

And bearing that Lance he rallied them all

Till they rode in tight charges from those castle walls

Routing again their objects of hate

And after much squabbling made Antioch State

Adhemar died and was sorely missed by the men

Raymond of Toulouse pushed on for Jerusalem

Through Tripola and Lebanon to the mountains

Where he met the Maronites who were Christians

Who had resisted the Turks

Then on with the work

Jerusalem stood strong and tall

They couldn’t breach it at all

Till a priest had a vision of Adhemar

Who said for the Crusaders hard

To atone by fasting going barefoot round the city

Which they did and pretty quickly

Had taken Jerusalem and killed all Muslims and Jews

It was their way it was what they knew

Ironically Urban died two weeks after that

Never hearing of his coup d’etat

Most Crusaders went home having done their bit

Leaving the problem of how to run it

Jerusalem’s Crusader state was made

And so it wouldn’t fade

Knights Hospitalier and Templar were founded

To protect Pilgrims and run around

Protecting all the Holy ground

From infidel of an other faith

Yet it wasn’t all one way

Solomon’s Temple was of eight

Sided shapes

This design the Templars did take

And place all over Europe

And in Malta too

This sacred geometric tool

I have heard it said that the Western crew

Knew not what high culture they had blown into

Raymond went and did Tripoli

Which made four states and lots of lolly

So the first crusade was complete

But there were to be repeats

Forty years later Turks took Edessa State

So Pope Eugenius III called the second Crusade

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux made it seem vogue

The Eastern Latin speaking states to go

To protect the land from the infidels once more

To fight for the Catholics another holy war

Kings Louis of France and Conrad of Germany

Soon set off upon the merry way

To meet in Acre then set off for Damascus

But they couldn’t get on and results were disasterous

Turks killed them all and they never arrived

And that was the end of the second try

Twenty years after that

A Sunni Kurdish warrior lad

Called Salah ed-Din had

Somehow brought all Moslem sects

Together to reject

The western intrusions

But not with total exclusion

He became Sultan of Egypt

Was naturally equipped

With diplomatic savvy

Such good relations had he

With Syrians Egyptians and Turks

That all prepared never to shirk

In clearing the Middle East

Of ruling Franks and their Priests

Yet his wisdom was in tolerance

Of religious observance
Surely it was better for him

Not to have his servants fighting

Amongst themselves

Might as well

Not hassle the Shi’ites but let them pray

Then all fight together on the battle day

Moslem and Christian respected him

That warrior that we call Saladin

Had more of an innate chivilary

That the Knights had ever dreamed to be
Around this time King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
Died young of leprosy gruesome

And Saladin much wanted the Crusader States

He went to the desert and stung Tripoli first

He goaded them out and they died of thirst

Acre was next

And then all the rest

Till Jerusalem

Was taken by Saladins’ men

Once he had victory

Ed-Din felt no need

To kill all his conquered

Like the Catholics did

I imagine them shuffling sheepishly home

Embarrassed at how the Crusades were going

Or maybe some stayed and learned quite a lot

Of what ways this strange eastern culture had got

Pope Gregory VIII called for the third crusade

To win back Jerusalem again

In Jesus’s holy name

There was King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany

Also King Phillip II of France

And it’s here where Richard the Lion Heart

Makes his dramatic entrance

Raping and pillaging in Normandy

Had made up most of his youthful days

Yet this was a man brought up with troubadours

And he wrote and sang a bit as well y’all

Especially when needing a ransom

Yes and of course he was handsome

Eager to crusade he sold much property

To finance his armies properly

Would have sold London if he had someone to buy

He once said that you know I don’t lie

He fell out with Phillip his friend on the route

Frederick drowned at Tarsus and then there were two

Who were not getting on and the Germans dispersed

Richard and Philip split up at first

Philip failed at Acre but Richard took Cyprus

Then they came together and were really quite decisive

Acre fell with no Saladin there to rally his men

Richard took the prisoners and just killed them

At which point Philip left saying he was ill

His French troops would follow French Richard still

But the chivalry of Saladin could only go so far

And he came with three times his foe in war

Yet Richard charged and soundly routed them

Then set off for Jaffa destination Jerusalem

But the French without their King would not follow through

So Richard captured Ascalon for something to do

Then set off again for Jerusalem but still could not win it

The Hospitalier and Templar Knights advised not to begin it

Saying even if it was took it could not be kept

A lesson today’s leaders would do well to recollect

Gazing from afar at the city Richard screens his eyes with a shield

Knowing he could not win it back or make the Persians yield

Yet he smashed Saladin at Jaffa with not that many men

Went on to claim a strip of coast but never Jerusalem

At which point they’d both had enough

For each other they were too tough

Saladin was sick of war

Richard wanted home once more

A peace treaty was writ and Richard kept his strip

Of Tyre to Jaffa plus Antioch and Tripoli

Muslems kept Jerusalem but Christian pilgrims could go there

Acre became the head crusader state and this is where

The third crusade ended, pious idealism as well

The crusades that were to come were pretty sick I tell

Forty years later Turks took Edessa State

So Pope Eugenius III called the second Crusade

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux made it seem vogue

The Eastern Latin speaking states to go

To protect the land from the infidels once more

To fight for the Catholics another holy war

Kings Louis of France and Conrad of Germany

Soon set off upon the merry way

To meet in Acre then set off for Damascus

But they couldn’t get on and results were disasterous

Turks killed them all and they never arrived

And that was the end of the second try

Twenty years after that

A Sunni Kurdish warrior lad

Called Salah ed-Din had

Somehow brought all Moslem sects

Together to reject

The western intrusions

But not with total exclusion

He became Sultan of Egypt

Was naturally equipped

With diplomatic savvy

Such good relations had he

With Syrians Egyptians and Turks

That all prepared never to shirk

In ridding the Middle East

Of ruling Popes and Priests

His wisdom was in tolerance

Of religious observance
Surely it was better for him

Not to have his servants fighting

Amongst themselves

Might as well

Not hassle the Shi’ites but let them pray

Then all fight together on the battle day

Moslem and Christian respected him

That warrior that we call Saladin

Had more of an innate chivilary

That the Knights had ever dreamed to be
Around this time King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
Died young of leprosy gruesome

And Saladin much wanted the Crusader States

He went to the desert and stung Tripoli first

He goaded them out and they died of thirst

Acre was next

And then all the rest

Till Jerusalem

Was taken by Saladins’ men

Once he had victory

Ed-Din felt no need

To kill all his conquered

Like the Catholics did

I imagine them shuffling sheepishly home

Embarrassed at how the Crusades were going

Or maybe some stayed and learned quite a lot

Of what ways this strange eastern culture had got

Pope Gregory VIII called for the third crusade

To win back Jerusalem again

In Jesus’s holy name

There was King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany

Also King Phillip II of France

And it’s here where Richard the Lion Heart

Makes his dramatic entrance

Raping and pillaging in Normandy

Had made up most of his youthful days

Yet this was a man brought up with troubadours

And he wrote and sang a bit as well y’all

Especially when needing a ransom

Yes and of course he was handsome

Eager to crusade he sold much property

To finance his armies properly

Would have sold London if he had someone to buy

He once said that you know I don’t lie

He fell out with Phillip his friend on the route

Frederick drowned at Tarsus and then there were two

Who were not getting on and the Germans dispersed

Richard and Philip split up at first

Philip failed at Acre but Richard took Cyprus

Then they came together and were really quite decisive

Acre fell with no Saladin there to rally his men

Richard took the prisoners and just killed them

At which point Philip left saying he was ill

His French troops would follow French Richard still

But the chivalry of Saladin could only go so far

And he came with three times his foe in war

Yet Richard charged and soundly routed them

Then set off for Jaffa destination Jerusalem

But the French without their King would not follow through

So Richard captured Ascalon for something to do

Then set off again for Jerusalem but still could not win it

The Hospitalier and Templar Knights advised not to begin it

Saying even if it was took it could not be kept

A lesson today’s leaders would do well to recollect

Gazing from afar at the city Richard screens his eyes with a shield

Knowing he could not win it back or make the Persians yield

Yet he smashed Saladin at Jaffa with not that many men

Went on to claim a strip of coast but never Jerusalem

At which point they’d both had enough

For each other they were too tough

Saladin was sick of war

Richard wanted home once more

For he’d heard John his own kin

Was up to a bit of throne nicking

A peace treaty was writ and Richard kept his strip

Of Tyre to Jaffa plus Antioch and Tripoli

Muslems kept Jerusalem but Christian pilgrims could go there

Acre became the head crusader state and this is where

The third crusade ended, pious idealism as well

The crusades that were to come were pretty sick I tell

These Knightly jaunts to nab the land

Of turban wearing Saracans

Was to reconcile Byzantium

And Roman Churches into one

That’s what Urban II desired

But it seemed the plan backfired

The fourth Crusade was the coffin nail

Hammered in to make it fail

This time Pope Innocent III

Commissioned armies to go by sea

From Venice through the Med to Egypt

But they never achieved it

The chief Magistrate Doge of Venice

Said Hungary is a menace

They’ve taken our town of Zara

We don’t want them to get farther

If you go and use your sword blades

To Egypt I will give you free passage

So Zara was seized and given the sack

When the Pope heard this his mood turned black

He excommunicated the Crusaders and the Doge as well

For actions like that they would go to hell

Whilst in Zara the Byzantium King Alexius came by

Who wanted to be restored, with father to his pride

Of position in Constantinople

He wondered if they were noble

Enough to help them get set up as Kings

If they did it was quid’s in

Of course they obliged

But tensions ran high

And though the two were made co-emperors

The Crusaders just kicked in the Royaldoors

It seemed that no cash was forthcoming

So they smashed up the Palace and running

Round town they sacked the whole place

It was humanities worst disgrace

Citizens were massacred

Surely every acre bled

Looting rioting rape and fire

This was not a purpose higher

This was Constantinople’s new Latin Empire!

Never yet has the church split been mended

Down the centuries so many men dead

Causes no healing possible to make

What kind of message shall we take?

Pope Innocent called for a fifth Crusade

But died before it got underway

This time they got to Egypt and took port Damietta

But striving to realise their long spun vendetta

Many died of disease in the Nile Delta

Then were trapped en route to Cairo where fate dealt a

Telling but not so cruel blow

A truce returning Damietta and they all could go!

These Muslims did not want to kill for the sake of it

They must have had another take on it

A culture much grander had made them more wise

They saw not just power and carnage with their eyes

And news of this was breaking through

Into thick western skulls, who give them their due

Had never seen nothing like the east at all

And so bits of this knowing would change the whole world

The Sixth was a curious turn of events

And ones which could lead to no regrets

Pope Gregory IX made the call this time

Emperor Fred of Germany said he would. Fine

But he never set sail and the Pope had enough

Excommunication he gave from heaven above

But Fred sailed to Palestine and drew not his sword

Achieving a great deal with diplomatic words

Yes for a span of ten years duration

Nazareth and Bethlehem and Jerusalem

Were given as Crusader nations

From further east the Mongol Tribes

On tiny quick ponies west were riding

Over Asia to Bagdad with Genghis Khan

Khwarismian Turks turned tail and ran

In their turn they did Jerusalem it was 1244

Pope Innocent IV called for Crusade once more

And Saint Louis IX King of France

Said he’d give it a chance

Getting to Egypt it was Damietta again

Which he quite easily claimed

But heading for Cairo he was captured on the way

To free up the army a huge ransom had to be paid

Near Nazareth Muslim Mamluks stamped out the Mongols

Captured the Christian towns Caesarea and Jaffa and on to

Antioch which they Muslim made

This little action led to the eighth crusade

Which Louis IX took on but died of disease

When they had only reached as far as Tunis

Edward of England a chivalrous prince

Of all this fighting wasn’t convinced

Thought it all corrupt and Louis was gone

Thought diplomacy better and wasn’t wrong

He brokered ten years of truce

With those Egyptian Mamluks

Waited for his wife Eleanor to give birth

Back in England was crowned Edward the first

That was the end of the Crusades to the Holy Land

What a mockery of God’s holy plan!

Two other crusades remain

These not to the Holy Land

One was to Occitania in southern france

The Cathars were Christian but did their own thing

And this the weight of the State on them did bring

The North was wanting to extend its power

So dubbed them heretics and on them glowered

Till the Albigensian Crusade of 1209

Had them all exterminated in double time

More times soldiers set of on these parades

But I’ll end with the sad Children’s Crusade

Three thousand children both French and German

Set off to conquer the Holy Land

Nick and Steve were their military guides

They were all sold as slaves or died

Richard got called the Lionheart ‘Coeur de Lion’

Because he proved it beyond

Any doubt in the Holy Lands

Yet things didn’t go as planned and

Heading back home

Leopold the fifth of Austria

Accosted him somehow or other

Letting Byzantine Holy Roman Emperor brother

Henry the Sixth slam him in jail

This caused English complexions to pale

As the ransom was a third of the countries wealth

A special tax levied at the poor was dealt

And Eleanor had to make sacrifices of her own

While Richard composed and thought of his throne

When he got out he crushed the coup

That John had been trying to do

Also regained lands lost to Philip once his friend

Though that friendship had long met it’s end

A brutal and arrogant King of great violent force

The ‘Good King’ of children’s books of course

Was slain by a child with a crossbow bolt

In dying Richard bewailed that he was at fault

Had remorse for undutifulness to his Father Henry

Wishing they might be reconciled when he

Saw him in the next world fast approaching

So Richard the Lionheart was buried close to him

His half brother John

Had been dying to get on

That Throne

Now it was his own

‘Bad King’ is how he is usually stereotyped

Certainly wasn’t liked

For he taxed to the max

And abused the fine administration

From when his dad ruled the situation

Richard had taken the Throne

Which Henry never condoned

But John was never appeased with gifts of terratory

He had failed to rule in Ireland temporarily

But now he was King he could do anything

But his actions caused many changes to ring

He did have a hard time John the Bad

But I don’t think I’ll feel too sad

He teamed up with Philip to little avail

Could not corrupt his taxmen when Richard was in jail

Saw to the murder of his nephew

Lost his French Lands too

Spending years trying to get them back

Was called John Lackland ‘cause land he lacked

Excommunicated for not accepting the papal candidate

John was steadily sealing his fate

The barons were fed up with John’s dismal campaigns

Incurring some new tax they had to pay

So revolted, took London then some time after

Drew up a thing called the Magna Carta

This was in Runnymeade by the Thames

A piece of paper as a means to an end?

It all shows John up as an appaling King

Yet modern constitutions stem from this thing

It declared the rights of Feudal times

Here’s the briefest of outlines

1. The Church would elect it’s own people

2. Large sums had to be given under consent

3.No man to be punished exept under common law

John grudgingly signed but delayed

Biding time for French to invade

The Barons offered French Louis the Throne

But were kicking off quite well on their own

In the midst of this chaos John died

Invasion and revolts going off on all sides

His son Henry was only nine

And was put on the Throne at this time

When rebellion caused by John

Was with the barons in the North going on

London and the south east

Were controlled by the French Dauphin Louis

Though the Henry was not very old yet

He had loyalty from the Midlands and South West

William the Marshall , Henry’s first Regent

Teamed with Barons and got Louis out the Region

Louis favoured too many Frenchmen in his Court

A big battle at Lincoln was how Louis’ lesson was taught

He went back to France to be King

Where it was less hassle for him

William governed followed by Hugh de Burgh when the Marshall died

And Henry III ruled in earnest from age twenty five

The land owning barons were keen

That things didn’t carry on as they had been

Kept on about the Magna Carta

Always to make it harder

For the King to have such total control

And by the same feudal rules be held

Nobles Barons and freeman felt the same

They wished perceptions rearranged

To see England as a community lot

Rather than just bits and bobs

Of independent principalities

Patchwork quilt localities

Of Manors owned by a few

And villages scattered through

Barons also wanted a say

In matters of state

Called a great council together

Kicked out the Chancery and the Exchequer

So the power of the King

And the government machine

Was answerable to their new councillors

Saying the State couldn’t tax too much or

Act irresponsibly with it’s power

Hoping that this would allow a

Broader governance than before

With wise council and restricting laws

The Barons thought this would be a tonic

But still Henry wound them up something chronic

By installing Frenchmen in the government

And Italians in the church meant

Regular English couldn’t get a place

It was quite some disgrace

And that wasn’t half of it

The Church had grown a bit

Corruptly covering Europe

So had plenty of scope

For extorting money

From all and sundry

For instance the English had to finance

A myriad officials working all over Christendom

Had to provide work and parishes

For any Italians who to England had come

The Barons were right peeved at this

Acquiescense to papal control buisness

And asserted national independence

In 1258 things had come to a point

When failed campaigns in France and Wales

Meant Henry had to put his land up for sale

And somehow pay for loads of new churches

Rome punched in the purse where it hurts yes

The last straw was financing the Pope versus Sicily

Another dismal failure actually

The Barons demanded reform there and then

Henry was forced to make a bargain

Something called the Provisions of Oxford was signed

That the Barons had designed

Letting them control the Realm

Henry was still at the helm

But could do nothing without it being known

This was OK at first

But gradually got worse and worse

Till bickering brought it low

And cracks began to show

Then Henry asserted himself

Stuffed the Provisions where it hurts

And caused a Civil War

Henry’s son Edward I lost it in Lewes in 1264

The baronial winner was Simon le Montfort

Brother in Law to Henry in the Angevine Court

For both King and Son it was imprisonment

Whilst de Montfort had the government

He went down well because of his family

And because he took reform seriously

Simon knew smaller landowners needed a say

As well as the substantially more moneyed

So summoned Knights burgesses and baronial gents

To the world’s prototype parliament

Where high and low could speak their mind of words

In House of Commons and House of Lords

It didn’t strictly mean that the poor had a voice

They were spoken for and had no choice

This was what it lead to though not formalized yet

The idea was just settling when up came a new threat

Gloucester’s Earl dropped out and Edward did escape

Those two got together and to arms they did take

Simon de Montfort was at Evasham slain

Henry was released and resumed his reign

Though it was Edward who had the power

His father was old now and maybe a bit sour

A failed soldier, politician and what bites to the core

His era was Kingship restricted by Law

Edward by contrast seemed to grasp

The modern notions and take to task

The letter of the Law decreed

Which called a King supreme

Judge and legislator yet also deemed

His subjects to be protected

(This last bit his father had rejected)

The King should rule with advisers

To council on all matters arising

Apparently he did so good for him

Cared for his subjects did this King

Though he was shrewd with the cash flow

And made a mobile retinue

Comprised administrators judges clerks

Magnates who went as part

Of a King’s household and council

That anytime anyplace could fill

In forms and have a deep chat

Find out where it was at

And what to do for the best

When it came to England’s interests

His refining of laws decreased feudal holdings

As more and more land the crown was owning

And the King alone could make you a vassal

No more could you take your house to church and sell

The land was getting turned into commodity

Inch by inch was given to the Monarchy

People might have felt protected by their Lord

But on these fine points might have felt unsure

Writers report that he did very well

Certain it was that his coffers did swell

For those not his subjects foreign policy was aggressive

He walloped the Welsh to give them the message

King Lywelyn ap Gruffydd died and lost his country all

Wales was placed under English civil law

Edward built new castles there

And English Royals since then declare

Their eldest sons to be hailed

As mercy me, the Prince of Wales

He had small success in Celtic Ireland

Negotiated France but was drawn to stand

Against incursions from Philip of Gascony

Yet in the end made a peace treaty

And retained the land won in parley

That he had before the fight

Gentlemen’s agreement, alright

Scotland in the lowlands was feudal

And in the mountains it was tribal

Edward saught through negotiation

For Margret of Scotland to marry his eldest son

She was the legitimate heir

But died on the way there

Edward had cleverly got a right to intercede

As the Scots feudal Lord, can you believe!

So could choose from claimants and chose John Baliol

Who as Lord took Edward on

But the Scots would not fight for the English King

Who invaded and soundly kicked them in

Causing Baliol to abdicate

And Edward to take his place

The Scots well hated this

And William Wallace

Incited rebellion most stirring

And defeated the English at Stirling

The next year however Edward fought back

Defeating Wallace at Falkirk

For several years the resistance went on

Till Wallace was caught and faced execution

He died but others took up the bitter fight

Robert the Bruce an heir’s grandson had the might

Had some victory but nothing outright

Then Robert some tricks from a spider learned

And smashed Edward for good at Bannockburn

Thus for many centuries

Scots hated Sassanacks almost entirely

Foreign policy had cost Edward sore

So he instituted taxes to pay for these wars

The Great Council meetings now called Parliament

Now showed Edward what justice meant

In the Magna Carta there is the clause

That says no King is above his Laws

And that taxes are levied only with consent

Of the Realm as spoke for by Parliament

While all this was happening, over in Japan

There happened the birth of a remarkable man

Born in Awa Province to seaweed farmers

His name was Zennichimara

Which changed at 16 when he took his tonsure

The guy wanted to be a monk for sure

And Rencho was the name he took

His big question

For the Japanese nation

Was why if so many practised

So much to so many Buddhist

Gods then why was there everywhere war

Why was life so demeaned what was the cause

Of the earthquakes and disasters and marshall law

Did they truly portent doom for all

Why when the prayers were made

Did they not do their job and save

Why were streets so often full of corpses

Pestilence crime murder and disease

A year before his birth in 1221

A struggle had broken out that affected everyone

The Imperial Court had tried to break free

From the Regent Hojo Yoshitoki. Not so easy

The Shogunate military heavies did a coup

Deposed the Emperor and got someone new

People prayed much to a Buddha called Amida

He lived to the East in a realm far

Too far away to reach in this lifetime

But in the next one you’d be fine

Rencho studied all he could find

Read every text to fill his mind

With knowledge of Sutras Treatise and Law

Looking for truth searching for flaws

That compromised Shakyamuni’s original wish

He wanted to accomplish this

And grasp the kernel that transmits

The Buddha nature surely within

Where to look where to begin

The Lotus Sutra was spoken to express

The life that is best

That radiates from the mind of Buddha

That one can make as good a

Go of things even in dire circumstances

Rencho thought this was the one

After many years of study he’d done

And that if you chanted it’s title, it’s name

There was great benefit to gain

His point really was that Amida was mind control

Dressed up to effect fealty to the Emperor

It upset the balance of karma

Praying to Amida

Because it did nothing to challenge our inner greeds

Being only a diversion that corruption feeds

A population with placatory words

That doesn’t help the world

Never cries justice to evil

Is too afraid even

To think differently

Because yes the authorities would see

So Rencho spoke the mantra we can all know

Which is Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo

Or I devote myself to the mystic law of cause and effect

Sanscrit and Vedic

Effective in a jam. Chant it if you can

When they first heard him do this mantra

The abiding priests had a tantrum

You can’t do this here or anywhere they said

Some actually wanted him dead

But Rencho escaped and changed his name

To Sun Lotus, which is ‘Nichiren’

He went around telling people to have no doubt

This little mantra was what it was about

A direct spiritual assault on the authorities

Whose Gods probably started quaking at the knees

The rest of his life this is what he did teach

The rest of his life he vexed heavy duty control freaks

But then he had heavy duty followers

Like Shijo Kingo a full power Samuria Warrior

Who was a healer as well

Who would have followed Nichiren to hell

This was his sentiment one time

When Nichiren’s life was really on the line

There was a beheading block and his head was on it

When overhead flew this flaming great comet

That lit up the sky to make night into day

Most of the monks there ran away

Soldiers bold were stricken with fear

But there were some that went near

To Nichiren because they saw who he was

Perceived something different through the fog

Of misconceptions about a man

Whose concern was simply for the Land

To be free and the people happy

It still wasn’t evidently

Executions could not take place in the sun

The Sage ordered Sake for everyone

They could catch him but never kill him

This was some prophesy fulfilling

Nichiren’s major concern was the Mongol Invasion

He said it would come

And they would wipe out everyone

Unless Amida and others similar

Ceased to be the State Creed

But the Government would not heed

He said it once twice three times in remonstrance

Yet the Government didn’t give it a chance

To which the Great Sage Nichiren saw

That it would be less slander to the Mystic Law

They wouldn’t be around to make more bad causes

If they were cut to pieces by the Mongol forces

He was exiled, he’d said his piece

The Mongols came but had storms at sea

That smashed them to bits on the cliffs

The invasion wasn’t a great success

It was Kublai Khan who had sent them there

Wishing vengeance on Japan from earlier

But maybe they overstepped themselves

There was much infighting as well

Ghengis Khan’s Grandson of the Pleasure Dome

As his travelling canvas palace was well known

Somehow touchs all places with inspiration flowing

But that’s not the Mongols that is the poem

Kublai Khan that I learnt in school

When I first touched those waters cool

That inspiration rings true clear

Say in bardic notions when one hears

The motion of this water

In ones inner caves

The shadow of a dome of pleasure

Floating midway on the waves

And maybe it is flowing with pure Awen

To brighten up our days

Maybe just illusion

Idealistic vision

Maybe the start of

A lifelong mission

What is the portent of such mirages?

It depends on who the judge is

Could it have been that one time

Life was lived as sublime

Not to say it was Utopia

Perhaps a different view on fear

And Death that is ever near

Living lives not yet formed

The concept of separation from

You or me or anything

It depends who is judging

In the crystal clear water vision

Can we see a time beyond

Crass trickery of war?

Surely tribes always fought

To protect their own

This is what history has shown

‘It’s human nature and it will never change’

I’ve known people gruffly explain

My friends know that history lies

To big up the bad guys

Twist it round

Faerie heritage gone underground

It was no place to be a faerie

To live in the thirteenth century

Kublai Khan

He of indomitable command

Ghengis his Grandfather

Who couldn’t have been harder

Also saw I believe

Through a magic prism

His rare Pleasure Dome

Those caves of ice Coleridge had known

Nichiren the Sage

Shogunate Japan all in the same age

As my telling of Kings

Which should quite nicely bring

Us to Edward the Second

Speaking of faeries

I don’t mean to be unkind

But he didn’t fit the mould

Of his belligerent line

He was a homosexual

Of another mind

His late father must have been

Grave-raging in perpetual spin

Edward II was inept in war

It was not what he adored

The Barons were infuriated

With Edwards gifts to men he rated

Saught to keep this Prince of Wales in check

Before he all of England wrecked

One Piers Gaveston from Gascony

Had been kicked out already

By Edwards father but he got back

Was a wayward influence on the lad

And siphened off too much power

It made the Barons glower

His Magnate imposed restrictions

And quite happily banished wily Gaveston

Until the barons kicked off and had him killed

Edward agreeing to more terms was hardly thrilled

Thomas Earl of Lancaster

Was brought by the Magnate

To help with the State

The King had fallen in with another outsider

His name being Hugh Dispenser

And together they executed Lancaster

After the battle of Boroughbridge York

Hugh and Edward ruled but there were revolts

Many were beheaded or exiled

Making enemies all the while

Then in Gascony sent on a mission

Edwards wife had a frisson

With Roger Mortimer an expatriate Baron

They invade England put Edward in prison

The King is killed a poker up the bum

Mortimer is ruling on the Throne is Edwards son

Edward the Third seemed much a Kings King

Nothing peculiar about him

His wife Phillipa gave him lots of children

His sexuality in court was less bewildering

He could kill made lots of war

That’s what God put him there for

Crowned at fourteen

He killed Mortimer

And exiled his Mother

Assuming control of the Government

His was the Hundred years war with France

Edward spoke of Chivalric Romance

With reality far more distanced. Gruesome

Death-mongering would be more truthsome

With Baliol he did in the Scots

Scotland again England got

Lines and alliances went back and forth

Concerning territory and allegiances troth

A naval battle called Sluys then at Calais and Cresy

Got the English on French soil, it was messy

Then came the Black Plague

Bubonic infections of great blue-black buboes

You don’t want to get one of them you know

Contact that and your dead in three days

Which took half of the population away

And foreign hostilities subsided a bit

People were not able to manage it

Then with the Black Prince, Edward’s son

They went and trounced everyone

With a big army surrounding Paris

Till was signed a treaty of Peace

Conceding lands in Bretingny

To English Sovereignty

But it was soon lost again

In the hundred years war game

A slow formation of history

Is what we see here

England’s moulding by the greedy

Yet also pressures of the times

The Merchant class was rising

Making money not surprising

From wool off of the backs

Of the poor peasants sheep

Merchants could speak in parliament

You can see that this meant

The poorer folk were spoken for

Not permitted in the door

The Feudal world was passing

The Merchant class was in

Meaning there were fewer landed barons

Now it was taxes of export and commerce not land

That fed the Royal purse a plenty

Which could then stretch to mercenaries

Replacing the vassals obligation of before

Treason was defined by statute of law

French ceased to be the tongue

That was spoken in Court

Sheriffs were given appointments

This was all done in Parliament

John of Gaunt had failed in France

The Plague had struck hard economic advance

Not everything was rosy

In the Court of Edward Three

John Wycliff made ecclesiastic reform

On Pope and Kings corrupt goings on

The Black Prince was ill

And Edward was dying

The Black Prince died

and Edward was crying

Too much tax had cost him the people’s faith

When his Mistress with William Chamberlain

And John of Gaunt

Ran the court in his dotage

They did things he didn’t notice

Edward ended his life feeling very bad

Was it punishment for the badness he had?

It was just after the Black Plague

There was all round reduced wages

But Parliament had not restricted prices

This of course had led to the Revolt

Richard the Second was the son of the Black Prince

And Joan the Fair Maid of Kent

What they say about his life is not

Nesicerily how it went

Made King at ten

He was fourteen when at Mile End

He met some people we now call peasants

With whom he agreed to concessions

They demanded he consent

Concerning certain ministers they did resent

Who had made their tax too steep

Risen from 4d to 12d

A levy of one fifteenth movable wealth

Was traditional and could be dealt

But this new tax was an unjust trickery

That and they were tired of villeiny

Contrary to the image that history gives us

It seems that these poor people were quite sussed

Were organised very well I have heard

From Essex and Kent to converge

In London with specific aims

To target those that from them gained

The exorbitant tax that was so hated

It seems that the authorities had not rated

Them with intelligence to take action

And were not fully prepared in reaction

(Though they knew how to deal with any rebel

The revolt didn’t take too long for them to quell)

The radical priest John Ball

Had made a sermon to them all

At Blackheath where his famous speech began

"When Adam delved and Eve span

Who was then the gentleman?"

He meant that when God the world began

He put no chains on man and woman

Implying that no man should be enslaved

A message that still echoes these days

This was spoken to the men of Kent

Whom Wat Tyler did represent

Over the London Bridge they marched

Into the cities very heart

Another leader, Jack Straw

Meanwhile brought many more

In from Essex way

They arrived at Stepney

And burnt the Savoy Palace of John Gaunt

Along with properties of the Knight’s Hospitalier Order

But it was all to do with targetting

Those who the hated tax had helped to bring

On the people disproportionate to their income

Yet this was not wanton violence they had done

But specific acts with particular aims

To stop the unjust unfair gain

Of ministers who an advantage used

With the King being such a youth

The people destroyed such records

Pertaining to the taxing they deplored

And this shows that some were literate

A fact that history tends not to iterate

Some people stormed the Tower of London

And there were several executions

Of prominent government ministers

Who had this tax administered

Such as Lord Chancellor Simon of Sudbury,

Archbishop of Canterbury

And Robert de Hales

Grande Prior of the Knight’s Hospitaliery

Both who met their end quite quickly

Richard had audience with the people

They wanted a King and they wanted Him

They thought him innocent which is believable

And he seemed to find their demands reasonable

For he bade that every one be pardoned

Not that he kept his side of the bargain

At Smithfield they all met again

Where Walter Tyler further proclaimed

Demands that no man be chained

By villeany or serfdom

There should be one King whose name was not John

The Church own no land and it’s authority gone

That the same be true of the Nobles

That they just handed their property over

And that there should be but one law

That being the Common Law of Winchester

It was better One King over all commanding

Than scores of Barons all squabbles and bickering

Tyler is said to have gone to parley

With the King and his Party but there was a fray

Out of the Common Peoples sight

So the version we hear is from only one side

Wat Tyler we are made to believe

To King Richard behaved discourteously

Grabbing him and drinking a pitcher of water so rudely

That Mayor Walworth killed Wat to reproove him

Richard rode out and addressed the nervy crowds

Though very young he was good at speaking out loud

Lying to them that Tyler had been made a Knight

That they should simply go home it was all alright

Yet in a fortnight the instigators were tracked

And under torture perhaps on a rack

Jack Straw confessed the names of revolutionaries

They were found and it didn’t help him any

He was killed and John Ball and more

It was a job for the executioner

Richard or his ministers revoked their reforms

And everything went on much as before

The tax was back

The poor still lacked

Perhaps they had been inspired to react

By reading or hearing the bardic tract

Of just published Piers Ploughman

And his Pilgrims Progress

Which spoke to the reality of their life’s stress

Which with other emerging troubadour tales

Blew around Europe senses to regale

With imaginings beyond what had been before

Opening up a new life’s door

The Limousin Troubadour Bertran de Boron

Had been bored

Back at the start of the Plantegenet Court

Hearing endless tales gory and violent

He thought it boorish and must have made comment

Henry the Seconds idea of high art

Was a leap a whistle and a fart

Such level of accomplishment

Thought this de Boron it is evident

Would be quite an embarrassment

In the Courts he had been

Which appealed to the Queen

Eleanor of Aquitaine surely knew what he meant

For she with troubadours her youth had spent

Her Grandfather had been Duke William the Ninth

The Count of Poitiers who had spent much of his time

Womanising in far lands of Crusade

And learning the songs of the age

Passing them on or making them new

And he was considered quite risque too

He composed love songs to women who were married

Which technically with it the death sentence carried

But it all helped to loosen things up

And Eleanor as I poeticised brought the cup

Of the Grail in tales passed down

Through her the line of troubadour found

To hear of that Grail that Percival achieved

Such a story to believe!

That Cretain de Troyes and Wolfram von Essenbach

Would also have tracked

Slowly filling the ears and minds of folk

Stories written with an imagination to evoke

Ethical and spiritual codes

Feelings suggest in a modern mode

To teach it and enrich daily life

To help people through their plight

And bring in new frames of mind

From the Eastern lands sublime

Which had a very big impact

To a boorish country that

Was not quite so far advanced as it thought

Inside a small and violent mind set caught

The tenets of Courtly Love

Were taught at Eleanor’s behest

And they stood the test

Of time through violent ages

With another form of persuasion

The world of Courtesans

Who diplomatically understand

Their role where marriage can cause

Both friendship and wars

By the time of Richard the Second

These ideas were well reckoned

And it is said he ran his Court

With a great deal of these thoughts

Terry Jones has said that there was magic

Too bad his ending was tragic

He was misrepresented by history he argues

I’ve heard it said how unpopular he was

But the fact he was topped was a loss

Maybe I can give Richard some dues

And say his court was refined

And he wasn’t out of his mind.

It was Bollingbroke, his cousin

Who gave him that reputation

Richard had given too much

To favorites he unwisely trusted

Michael de la Pole, Robert de Vere and others

Who with Thomas Duke of Gloucester

Formed the Lord’s Appellant

Who tried and convicted five of Richard the Second’s

Closest advisors. For this the King made parliament

Execute three Lords and give two banishment

But when Richard went to quell an Irish rebellion

One of the Lords returned to be crowned by parliamentary concession

This was Bollingbroke I should mention

Richard on return had no support and was imprisoned

He was killed of course

First casualty in the Wars

Of the Roses caught

Between the houses of Lancaster and York

Since the time of Edward the Third

As you have briefly heard

This was the time for treachery on a high level

So who was for real could be hard to tell

There were imposters whom I shall describe

Who feigning a heritage their real birth-lines hide

Let's talk of one King Sigismund of Luxemberg

Who was other than said his silvern words

It was he who first assumed the line

In 1408 he announced his family was entwined

With the Royal House of Anjou

Of course it was not true

But he said it was his

And founded the Societas Draconis

Falsly claiming direct British Elven Descent

Can you see what this meant?

Now if you thought that was phony

What about his vampire cronie?

Vlad Draculae or Basarrab

Was invited to the club

To him the descent also wrongly dubbed

Was to the Egyptian Sobek crocodile cult

The power base was thus affirmed

It looked the same but was upturned

They determined the route for Kings to take

That left blood and deception in it’s wake

Stole the robe that denotes the descent

Not at all what the true line meant

To promulgate about the world

This fraud a new banner unfurled

Proclaiming persecution for the fey

And anyone else who doesn’t pay

A clear departure from the way

Intended by the original crew

Of course none of this was that new

Persecutions were rife against those of true knowing

Like the Cathars and the Templars who kept it going

Such knowledge these families held deep in life

Was the reason for their much and arduous strife

Yet falsehood is another gambit than this

What seems like love is a poisonous kiss

Lacking soul but looks the part

Wears the suit but has no heart

Detesting life they suck you dry

You cannot live you cannot die

HUNDRED YEARS WAR p118

The Hundred Years war game had been raging

Since 1337 between England and France campaigning

For the terratory of Aquitaine

Plus Edward had a French throne to claim

Using innovative and deadly new technology

Of the Longbow that skewered horribly

Agincourt was won and Crecy and Poitiers

By the English though it didn’t stay that way

After many a naval skirmish in the channel

Many a raid and siege and battle

Joan d’Arc at just seventeen

Rallied the French and at the siege of Orleans

Turns the tide of the English invasions

She acted from divine persuasions

Visions told her to take her French homeland

Back from dominating English hands

And from that point, though she died at nineteen

Bit by bit the English did leave

Later she was captured at Compiegne

And was used in a political smear campaign

To undermine the French King by association

In a fix-up trial for heresy against the papal persuasion

They burnt her at the stake

And burnt her again to make no mistake

Causing the executioner to fear being damned

Geoffroy Therage felt he’d killed a holy woman

Under Henry the Sixth

England’s French grip truly slipped

Twenty five years from Orleans

Save for Calais the English were gone

Called the Hundred Years War by history

This sequence of wars ended in 1453

A couple of years on and it’s the Wars of the Roses

Where were all the faeries one supposes?

p.119

WARS OF THE ROSES ACCORDING TO SHAKESPEARE

1455 to 1485 was the English silly season for usurping

Drawing to an end the line of Plantagenet Kings

Two sides of a family fighting it out for succession

It wasn’t like this when the Tuatha were in session!

They were mad for it to rule the land

With power of military command

This form of sucession was not always so

As my little bardery has tried to show

Long before it was by female consent

That determined how it went

Not this game of eldest son

So relatively recent begun

Shakespeare dubbed it the Wars of the Roses

And it only goes to show

How a family divided all England to uncivil war

All to sort out their claim line, I ask what for?!?

It’s my own perogative and my propagandum too

To muse on alternative ways to rule

Richard the Second

May or may not have got to heaven

But I hear his court was a riot

He didn’t try to keep the satirists quiet

Lampooning was allowed

In fact spoken out loud

As part of the Royal amusements

In quite some profusement

Geoffrey Chaucer

Our father of literature

Had great daring if you read him

And consider what he put in

To some of his witticisms

Church and state criticisms

Like the Friars who live up Satan’s arse

Numerous as swarming bees what class

To know these things Geoff was well qualified

For many court offices he had occupied

This accepting mood was not to last

Under Bolingbrooke it had to exit fast

What happened to Chaucer noone knows

No records of death with could just show

He was done in secretly because of his position

His insightful stories seen as sedition

So it was war and more war

One ends another is an open door

That was chosen to step through

Rights to rule to proove

The power hungry drool

War is the perfect tool

For taking what is not yours

A King authenticates the cause

Surely the case here adopted

But Boling brooke was not popular

He became Henry the Fourth

And was tolerated because

Richard 2 had been so disliked

(In spite of his Court which sounded nice)

Henry 4 was John Gaunt’s son the 3rd son of Edward 3

But his name was not the first up on the family tree

It should have been descendants of Lionel of Antwerp Edward the Thirds’s 2nd son ,

Richard had said that they were the ones

Who through progeniture should have put the crown on

Roger Mortimer, Lionel’s grandson that Richard had named while he still lived

Was as in Plantagenet lineage their heir presumptive

But Bolingbrooke saw not like this

And violently made it his

Being no heir apparent himself

He took it by stealth

Thus inciting many claims

Using Mortimer’s name

In Wales Cheshire and Northumberland

He got these under command

But didn’t live long to enjoy the gain

His son continued the militaristic reign

Bringing success in that French war game

So this Henry the Fifth was a popular Monarch

In a land where violence is so obviously honoured

But he died and it was the turn of Henry the Sixth

Who due to unstable mind was not really fit

To be England’s ruler over all

But there were more waiting in the stalls

Mortimer’s Daughter Anne

And Richard of Cambridge, her man

Begat Richard of York

Who when he grew up, King Henry would stalk

For Kingship him to challenge

Not that Henry was managing

He was loosing what was in France gained

And with these bouts of illness with his brain

Needed advisors and he got them bad

Edmund Beaufort Duke of Somerset he had

And William de la Pole Duke of Suffolk likely lads

Who dissipated further what control there was

A clear case for the York line of Richard because

The Royal House was in total dissarray

As was much of the country

Still smarting from Henry 4’s usurpery

With much disdaining of Royal authority

And fighting between long established noble families

And those minor nobility that Bolingbrooke had raised

Noteably between the established Northumbrian Percies

And brother-in law Richard Neville with little mercy

In Cornwall it was the Courtneys and the Bonnevilles

It was get your brother and kill kill kill

It was all the rage to go for broke

With wars big and small provoked

By ambiguity or downright illegality

Of the Royal descent

Wholesale carnage this all meant

As the Duchess in Wonderland said

We are painting the white roses red

With Royal confusion at its head

All classes of folk ended up dead

Because of the Kings mental instability

Richard of York set up a council of Regency

Imprisoning Lancastrian Edmund of Somerset

And setting his allies against Henry yet

The King revived from his malaise

And hindered Richard’s scheming ways

He was forced out of Court by Henry’s Queen

That being Margaret of Anjou who had seen

He was trouble but then so was she

And with the help of Lancastrian Nobility

Diminished Richards influence

Till it got him really incensed

And at St Albans hostilities flared

The first of the battles happened there

Richard removed Henry’s unsound advisers

That was his spin then in 1455

Edmund of Somerset and other leaders were dead

Richard was the victor but instead

Of raving on about it, both sides seemed shocked

That they had in war become locked

And made up to each other for a while

Richard resumed the role of Protector

As to the Queen he tried to reject her

When Henry lost it again

Margaret was demoted to look after the ailing King

They had a son Edward was his name

At it slowly kindled hostilities again

In Court Richard had the biggest influence

But Margaret would not yield to any inference

Suggesting her son would not be King

Such thoughts as these violence will bring

Though she waited while Richard had bigger armies

And set up Court over in Coventry

They were more popular there

Than in London where

Merchants were miffed by the loss of trade

Now that proper order had decayed

Somerset’s son was now the rising star of the Court

Things began to get more and more fraught

Margaret got Henry to strip York of his titles

And soon it would be down to where the fight was

Richard was sent back to his Ireland post

There were pirate raids on the South Coast

And as the Capitol slid into a messy situation

The King and Queen thought only of their continuation

She introducing conscription for the first time

Very aware of the tense political clime

Here Richard Neville Earl of Warwick

Had gained popularity and was in thick

With the Merchant classes, a powerful place to be

Soon there would be more hostilities

Richard returned from Ireland

To light the civil war firebrand

A battle in Staffordshire was the first blow

When a Yorkist army heading for Ludlow

Met with a large Lancastrian force

And at Blore Heath they fought of course

The Yorkists made it to the Castle as planned

But later the Lancastrians got the upper hand

After the battle at Ludford Bridge had passed

Richard of York’s eldest son Edward the Earl of March

Had to flee for Calais as did Salisbury and Warwick

Somerset was sent to evict them his efforts came to nowt

The Yorkists even sent ship-raids to knock them about

England was a messy chaotic situation

And in 1460 Warwick made a proper invasion

Got into Kent and London where they were loved

A Papal decree granted backing from above

And at Northampton push came to shove

King Henry was captured there was treachery done

And the Yorkists returned him to merry old London

Because he was victor Richard pushed for King

At first the Lords would not let him in

But York showed his family tree

Detailing more direct geneology

Descending from Lionel of Antwerp

I can see why he felt it would work

Untainted by collateral claimers

Fratricidal usurpers who left a trail of

Wars caused by imbalance of power

Allegiances split and at such an hour

An incapable King of questionable heredity

Causing uncertainty throughout the whole country Henry remained with a majority of five Lords

So they made this new Act of Accord

Disinheriting Henrys son Edward

Giving succession to Richard instead

Which suited him fine

He was next in line

And he governed anyway as Protector of the Realm

As you can see he had done quite well

Margaret was expelled with the child she went North

Lancastrians could not accept the Act of Accord

So rallying round her a large army formed

Amassing strength and brewing a storm

The Duke of York and Lord Salisbury departed

From London headed North to reckon with Margaret

Taking a position at Sandal Castle near Wakefield

And here comes the moment when fate deals

Misfortune to the Duke who had half as many men

As Margaret, attacked and never got up again

Slain, his head put on a spike

His son Edmund and Salisbury alike

Their heads were placed on the gates at York

It was in vain that Richard fought

According to the Accord York’s eldest Edward was heir

And Warwick the biggest landowner in the ar-ea

So Margaret asked the Scots for help against them

Queen Mary Gueldres agreed on condition

She got Berwick Town and her daughter wed Edward

They both agreed and the plan went ahead

Due to circumstances of having no cash

Mary said Margaret could trash

Anywhere below the river Trent

And that is just how it went

In the rich Southern Lands

Extensive pillaging began

Then at Mortimer Cross in Hereford

Edward thrashed Jasper Tudor good

And three suns seen at sunrise the Parhelion

Were said to symbolise York’s surviving three sons

Edward, Richard and George

And this Sunne in Splendour

Was made into their emblem

They were young men then

Warwick let news of Margaret’s plundering

Act as propaganda that helped bring

Southerners round to a Yorkist allegiance

When Coventry changed there was a chance

But too late and too few and with no Edward

At St Albans the Earl was caught off guard

By Margaret’s armies who made him flee

Only to find her Henry unharmed beneath a tree

Margaret headed for London Town

It’s people put the portcullis down

And raised the drawbridges refusing to feed

The Lancastrians who in their need

Pillaged nearby Hertfordshire and Middlesex

But when Edward and Neville arrived from the West

Margaret had North to Dunstable gone

And the Yorkists were let into London

London wanted Edward King

But before they could coronate him

Henry VI would have to be exiled or executed

Because he taken arms against the heir it suited

This was against the Act of Accord written down

It happened at the Battle of Wakefield Town

Edwards brother and father had met their killers

It had gone beyond Henrys bad councillors

Edward and Neville headed North to near York

And met with the large Lancastrian force

At Towton where was the biggest battle as yet

In one day twenty thousand soldiers met their deaths

Edwards victory saw the Lancastrians destroyed

Henry and Margaret fled North with their little boy

Many Lancastrian nobles that had survived

Now changed over to Edwards side

Others went North or to Wales with wounds

Many would be routed out quite soon

When Edward went to York he saw the rotting heads

Of Lord Salisbury his father and brother so instead

He stuck up heads of dead Lancastrian Lords

Including Edmunds executioner the notorious Clifford

Henry and Margaret were in Scotland

At the Court of James the Third ensconced

They conceded Berwick and attacked Carlisle

But they had no money and were trounced

Yorkist forces were wiping out Lancastrians

Where they had fled to the Borderlands

Edward was coronated

At least he had waited

And he ruled in peace for ten years

Resistance remained till 1464

The Percies fell at Alnwick and Bamburgh

There was Hedgely Moor and Hexham

Where Nevilles brother John neatly squashed them

When finally ended the seven year siege at Harlech

Edward had got the thing licked

Henry the deposed King and Margaret were found

And both were put in the Tower of London

Treated quite well it seems at first

Though things did turn out for the worse

There came a time when Richard ‘Kingmaker’ Neville

Earl of Warwick and King Edwards friendship chilled

Liz Woodville was a girl Edward secretly would wed

While Neville had got other plans for him instead

To marry a French girl for their allegiance

But Edward went for his romance

And Woodvilles became more favoured than Nevilles

Which naturally brought out all the devils

Neville was for allegiance with France but Edward was for Burgandy

Edward would not let his brothers Nevilles sisters marry

Neville joined with jealous George

Defeating Edward at Edgecot Moor

At Middleham Castle he was held

His Queens father promptly killed

Edward was forced to call a parliament

That would declare him illegitimate

The crown would go to George Duke of Clarence

As he was Edward’s heir apparent

Yet Richard his brother came to the rescue

With most of the nobles in the retinue

The King was freed a little later

Neville and George called traitors

And forced to flee to France out of the flack

Where exiled Margaret was planning a comeback

King Louis suggested the old enemies get together

Pool their skills to see whether

They could turn the tables

They married two of their children and invaded

This time Edward had to flee

John Neville returned his loyalty

To his brother and his armies caught Edward short

His army scattered but he was not caught

Made it to Holland then Burgandy

While Warwick reinstated Henry

Ed and Rich were the traitors now

When Neville planned invading Burgandy with Louis

Charles the Bold of Burgandy helped Ed with an army

Neville was defeated at the Battle of Barnet

After all that effort he must have thought darn it!

The Battle of Tewksbury did for the last Lancastrians

Henry VI and his heir Edward met their grizzly ends

Murdered to make the York line more strong

Just as murder would feature before too long

With Edward the Fourth back in the picture

Some would say that was the end of conflict sure

But he soon died and mayhem resumed

Because the Woodvilles recently assumed

Power in Court was resented by factions

And sooner or later would come the reaction

Though the families were all of the Yorkist line

There was dissension within at this time

Edward the Fifth was only twelve when coronated

This son of a Woodville was bound to be ill fated

Richard Duke of Gloucester Protector of the Realm

Was the ipso facto leader at England’s troubled helm

With William Hastings and Henry Stafford

Captured young Edward in Bucks at Stony Stratford

And in the Tower of London left him to reside

Soon joined by his brother Richard of York aged nine

What happened to them nobody knows

They were kept out of the way and neatly disposed

The Duke declared their parents’ marriage illegal

To which parliament agreed making Gloucester Regal

The Titulus Regius named him Richard the Third

Of which statute the next King would not read a word

Henry would have them destroyed so no one could trace

In the King business you could never loose face

Lancastrian hopes were for this Henry Tudor

Henry VI’s illegitimate half-brother but proved more

By marriage on his Mother Margaret Beaufort’s side

Her father was John of Beaufort who touched the line

He Edward the Third’s grandson by John of Gaunt

Was good enough lineage the Yorkists to taunt

Henry Tudor defeated Richard the Third

At the famous battle of Bosworth Field

To quickly become King Henry the Seventh

He marries Elizabeth of York who had the best descent

And fused the two roses into one

Hoping for a new peace to come

A red and white Tudor Rose

Containing symbolism to close

The Lancastrian Yorkist Wars

Though executing several more

Claimants was in store to keep the peace

A policy his son would keep

And then to coincide with families and their Royal taste

A demon was put there in Richard the Third’s place

A hunchback usurper according to Shakespeare

That his were Tudor times comes through very clear

After Henry became the Sixth was the Battle of Stoke

An event seemingly by a young man provoked

He was Lambert Simnel

A boy who resembled

The young Yorkist Earl of Warwick

But the plot didn’t stick

Warwick was alive in Henry’s custody

John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln was crushed duly

At Stoke wiping out Yorkist opposition

Simnel was pardoned and made work in the kitchen

Lastly Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard of York

Who was he? Henry just set the executioner to work



I ain't got no home, I'm just a-ramblin' round
I'm just a wandrin' worker, I roam from town to town.
The police make it hard wherever I may go
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road
A hot and dusty road that a million feet done trod;
Rich man took my home and drove me from my door
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Was a-farmin' on the share, and always I was poor
My crops I laid into the banker's store;
My wife took down and died upon the cabin floor
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Now as I look round, it's mighty plain to see
The world is such a great and a funny place to be;
The gamblin' man is rich and the workin' man is poor
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

note: words by Guthrie; tune from Carter Family "Can't Feel at
Home In this World Anymore" See also CANTHOME
@dustbowl

Geoffrey Chaucer lived in his da

y

A Merchant himself with much to say

Many offices he had held in his name

But his Canterbury tales is what has remained

Nobody knows how he died was he lynched?

For knowing too much or being too rich

Times were changing

Society rearranging

Gone were the old style troubadours

Of

Syria Egypt

Syria Egypt

one