The One-Armed Queen
Page 30
Bring in the onions and garlic and cloves,
Bring in the cup of good cheer.
Bring in the berries, red, purple, and black,
Bring in the caramelized candy.
Bring in the fruit pies, the cakes, and the tarts,
Bring in the possets and brandy.
(Chorus) Fast day to feast day to fast day again,
We feed down from castle to cottage.
One week we’re ample with courses to spare,
Dining on venison, wild pig, and bear,
Finishing off with both apple and pear.
Next week we dine upon pottage.
The Dark Sister’s Lullaby
With sweet passion
Come to me, sister, the night will be deep,
And sleep comes not easily soon.
I’ll cradle you closely, my promises keep,
My night for the light of your moon.
Come to me, sister, the stars all take flight,
Come kiss me this once ere I go.
I’ll cradle you carefully night after night
As I did in the dark long ago.
The Warrior’s Song
In a gallop
Swords are now red that were shiny and new,
Arms that were white are now blackened and blue;
Still we are sisters and always are true,
And we will win through to the morning.
You kill the man who is fast on our track.
I kill the man who has you on your back.
We parry and thrust and we sever and hack,
We always win through to the morning.
But when we grow old and our hands lose their guile,
And we cannot kill with a casual smile,
Pray turn on me straight with your usual style
And I’ll run you through, too, in the morning.
Jemmie Over the Water
With longing
He rode the wild waves to his land,
Sing Jemmie over the water,
They gave him but the back of the hand,
Oh, will ye come home to me.
He left in winter, back in spring,
Sing Jemmie over the water;
To find his sister crowned the king,
Sing Jemmie over the sea.
An’ will ye take silver, will ye take gold,
Sing Jemmie over the water,
Or will ye take the throne to hold,
Oh will ye come home to me.
I neither gold nor silver make,
Sing Jemmie over the water,
But I the throne will surely take,
Sing Jemmie over the sea.
So, kill the girl upon the throne,
Sing Jemmie over the water,
And then, oh then, will I come home,
Oh I will come home to thee.
The Ballad of Corrine Lackland
Plainly
The one of them was Jem the Bold
Who fought with either hand,
The younger was Prince Corrine
Who was left with little land.
As they were drinking ale and wine
Within his brother’s hall,
Prince Corrine pointed to a port
That opened in the wall.
“That green gate is to Faerieland,
Where Mother dear does dwell.”
“Nay, brother,” quoth the bold Jemson,
“That is the gate to hell.
“But if you’re sure, my brother dear,
Then you the path shall find.
And as I am king on the throne,
I shall remain behind.”
He pushed his brother through the port,
Far down Lackland did fall.
His portion was six feet of earth
And death to bear his pall.
Fen Love Song
With sweet joy
Little skin boat, so rough and so new,
Speed the boat o’er, speed the boat o’er,
Tell him I love him and that I be true.
Speed the bonnie boat o’er.
(Chorus)
Little skin boat, so taut and so trim,
Speed the boat o’er, speed the boat o’er,
Take this my token, be bringing it him,
Speed the bonnie boat o’er.
(Chorus)
If he refuses, I’ll jump in my boat,
Speed the boat o’er, speed the boat o’er,
Over the fenway to sink or to float,
Speed the bonnie boat o’er.
(Chorus)
Journeycake ho!
With a bounce
This wasn’t a trip I was planning to make
As I fled through the door with some good journeycake.
But my horse was all saddled, so off I did ride
Thankful I still had my head and my hide.
Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!
Make it and take it wherever you go.
Travel on water, on ice, or on snow,
It will keep you filled up till the morning.
The master was after me, likewise the noose,
I had to go quickly and lightly and loose.
So I grabbed what I could and I let the rest be;
I didn’t have much—but at least I had me.
Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!
Make it and take it wherever you go.
And if you’ve no money, you’ll still have the dough
To keep you filled up in the morning.
A Personal History by Jane Yolen
I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!
We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.
When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.
I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book, Owl Moon—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.
And I am still writing.
I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in Newsweek close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.
The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I’ve also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called Once Upon a Time.
These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including Not All Princesses Dress in Pink and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among othe
r fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like Wild Wings and Color Me a Rhyme.
And I am still writing.
Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection’s Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don’t shine!
Also of note—in case you find yourself in a children’s book trivia contest—I lost my fencing foil in Grand Central Station during a date, fell overboard while whitewater rafting in the Colorado River, and rode in a dog sled in Alaska one March day.
And yes—I am still writing.
At a Yolen cousins reunion as a child, holding up a photograph of myself. In the photo, I am about one year old, maybe two.
Sitting on the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park in New York in 1961, when I was twenty-two. (Photo by David Stemple.)
Enjoying Dirleton Castle in Scotland in 2010.
Signing my Caldecott Medal–winning book Owl Moon in 2011.
Reading for an audience at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2012.
Visiting Andrew Lang’s gravesite at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Scotland in 2011.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
“Music of the Dales” copyright © 1998 by Adam Stemple
Copyright © 1998 by Jane Yolen
Cover design by Kat JK Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3453-1
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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