Alexandr Tikki
What’s in your bag?
The fourteenth century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym wrote of a moonlit lovers tryst rudely interrupted by a shepherd with a rattlebag.
Under Christ, there was never a sound in Christendom
(a sow’s fame) as harsh:
a bag sounding on the end of a stick,
a bell’s sound of small stones and gravel;
a shaking vessel of English stones making a sound
in a bullock’s skin;
a basket of three thousand beetles,
a surging cauldron, a black bag;
guardian of a meadow, cohabitor of grass,
black-skinned, pregnant with dry wood-chips.*
Note that they were “English stones” obviously the most spiteful kind of stone to a Welsh poet. And the girl, the excellent, modest, soft spoken girl, she heard the noise and was scared away.
I’ve often wondered about those lovers. In our urban world where the night resounds with noises, a rattle wouldn’t be what scared the girl. This one carries her very own bag, if she falls, it overflows with nick-nacs, bits and bobs, lotions and gadgets, the inevitable spaghetti of cables; surely the modern rattlebag. I’ve wondered if perhaps the excellent fourteenth century Welsh girl who ran from Dafydd, might have had second thoughts. Or maybe she decided that a shepherd would make a more reliable partner than a poet.
*The Rattlebag by Dafydd ap Gwilym
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Rachel Irving and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
