The Knotsman E-Book

Math Jones

• Herausgeber: Arachne Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 81

Beschreibung

The Knotsman does not exist, you will not find him in history books or collections of 'bygone' skills. But Math Jones has created him, and his fellows, in a time very like the English Civil War. There he is, going from house to house, village to village, battlefield to gallows, unravelling knots and problems, physical, emotional and psychological; a new kind of cunning man, not always welcome, not always quite as clever as his fingers and picks would have him believe.

Leseprobe

Contents

The Last Knotsman

A True Historie of the Last Knotsman

The Knotsman’s Apprentice

The Knotsman

The Knotsman’s Defence

Knot-sure!

The Slipped-Knot

‘I’d ne’er deny the Knotsman, though he tied the rope hi’self’

‘My Mourning-Knot is Lost.’ (or, The Knotsman’s Farewell.)

Love Knot

Apprenticeship

Knot

Knotlings

The Foundling

‘The Route the Trouble Takes’

The slayed-knot

The Spur

The Prize Picker (or, A Knotsman’s Recollections of the War)

Love-Not

The Black Thread

Four Failures

His Master Freed

‘I owe tha’ Mother Lichgate ha’f a shillin’

Loose Threads

The First Knotsman?

The Undoer of Knots

The Chirurgeons

The Poor Knot Amongst the Rich

The Hill-Diggers

Journeyman

The Bag of Ribbons

The Weaver Wife

Midwinter

The Scholar in his Cups

Scrawl (Calling on Mr E.)

The Poetess

The Sailor

The Puritan

Blood-Knot

Master

Knot Love

The Knotsman at Rest

Oxbow

The Betrothal Rope

Turning

Samaritan

The Drop

Itinerant

Mr Swarthye

A Man called ’Win

The Hanged Man

The Knot Never Tied

A True Historie of the Last Knotsman

D’ye hear the Knotsman came our way,

His tugs and picker in his case,

Calling around the market-place,

With ’is Any strings fer me t’day?

Did ye see the knots upon his face,

The lines and hitches tightly bound;

And trailing, like a tethered hound,

The story of his sharp disgrace:

A tale of scandal going round

Of lovers, closely knit, against

Their parents’ wishes, hard, incensed,

Unless the ’trothing-rope be found,

And so the Knotsman’s search commenced,

With heavy promises to find

The heart-string-join, and so unbind

The love-knot from their bloods condensed.

He spied the matted threads behind

The upper bedroom’s linen-chest,

And at the mothers’ fierce behest,

Began his loosing-work unkind.

The younger felt, within his breast,

The first cord of his heart untie,

And speaking to his lover’s eye,

Awoke him from his joyful rest.

I say we must the world deny,

Before the hitches of our heart

Are by the Knotsman eased apart.

The river took them both to die.

Arrested for his ‘devil’s art’,

Imprisoned by the New Belief,

All stoked by fathers’ rage and grief,

The Knotsman felt the judge’s dart,

But slipped his bindings, sought relief,

Escaping to our neighbour town,

Was by the constable put down

To hang from gallows on the heath.

A hangman came, of great renown,

To raise the beam and tie the noose,

A slip-knot two-step to induce,

And take the parents’ silver crown.

No rope would suffer such misuse

To cause the cunning Knotsman pain,

But showed the gallows-man disdain:

The loops and hitches set him loose;

The hangman tied his rope in vain,

As through the crowd the Knotsman slipped,

Not ever by a binding gripped,

Nor never to be seen again.

The Knotsman’s Apprentice

The Knottyman came to the backdoor. ‘A ’strings fer me?’  Mother would turn him away, but I pulled at her sleeve. Sissy said, ‘Miss Jemima, M’m?’

He searched the linen-chests, then the boot-room; he examined curtains, the spinning, even candle sconces. Shabby beside our bright things. A walking shadow, quiet around Jemima’s bed.

He brought three knots to the parlour: a leather cord in father’s breeches, his best. A silken from mother’s undergown. She blushed. And my bowstring, a toy left unused. All snagged and knotted beyond untying.

Mother tutted, agreed to his ‘penny a ’not’.

He let me watch, took the leather and pulled his blade. ‘Ni’ t’ cut, lad, nay. Niv’r t’ cut’.  Tight skin on bone and sinew worked. I watched. He pushed the cords, not pulling, blew on them, tapped, eased the loops. Soon it was free. Father stormed into the house, shouting for mother!

He worked the silk, ‘Clen han’s, d’n’t mith’r’.  I saw him tease the knot, split it in two, draw them apart, unbind them one at a time. Mother was screaming upstairs. I stood. His hand stilled me.

He took my bowstring, winked, working fingers, picking, pushing, rolling, teasing. Mother came down. Flushed, smiling. Father followed, not scowling, happy. He put coin on the table: a shilling! He took her hand.

A rush of cannonballs lurched in my stomach. Gunpowder and muskets. I stood, walking through a cavalry charge, embraced them.

The Knotsman went, leaving breeches, chemise and a new-strung, toy bow.

‘Jemima, M’m! She’s worse!’

She was burning, covers thrown, Sissy mopping her down. Father knelt to pray, mother sobbed.

I saw it. A single, light and crinkled thread, limp from the hem of her nightgown. Clearing my eyes, I sat at her feet. Took up the knot. Examined the thread, and picked at the first loop.

The Knotsman

Being notes and researches into the itinerant class and here recorded by the gentleman and antiquarian, Mr E., since vanished.

Knotsman – an itinerant, a cunning man, claiming to solve the ills of a household by the unpicking of knots found within the dwelling or demesne.

A’ strings? A’ strings?

                                                A’ strings for me t’ loose t’day?

In the throng of the marketplace today,

I saw a creature sat alone, a seeming crow,

The Knotsman as he’s known. I asked

If I might watch his work, write it down.

A scribbler, are ye? he replied. A gentleman, I;

A poet also, making knots of words.

I weave with rhymes and sounds.

He farted then. Aye, so. Jus’ not when I’m aroun’.

His fingers catch the smallest fibre; just a touch,

To let it know he knows it’s there;

A gentle roll to feel the threads

Within a thread, remind them each,

The twists and twills, what it feels like to be free;

Teasing, working out the strand within the tightened loop,

Pulls it clear to loose the one that’s trapped beneath.

Take the weight away, y’ see,

Cup it gentle, let it ease,

Stroke it, roll it, take b’th ends,

Work t’ward the middle, t’ the first entangle, born from kinks

An’ left t’ curl. Mind the snarl! Purls an’ stitches are my foemen!

’Nitting gran’sires, look away! I’ll throw your work,

Yer warm work, all dropped upon the stones…

                                                                       he grins.

A tiny tug against the strain, then round to push, then tug again

the other way,

Enlarge the loop, leave it hanging, bring the body through the

mouth;

Niver wet it: niver let it swell, nor too much dry,

Snappin’ strings is worse than ’Ell –

With a nail, and a pin, and a close-to eye;

His pickers, teasers, hangers by;

Know the tug that will not tighten;

Know the route, the loops, the trouble takes:

{The Hare Loop, the River Loop, the Strangle-Grip,

The Key Thread, the Loom Weight, the Fawn and Jib

The Shy Cog, the Stray Fanny, Dog’s Leg, Lip and Jaw}

Is the line a Fly? Can it be released

And never further trap the rest?

Oh, there’s two

In a Twin-Cobblin’, Kissin’ Jennies, bes’ t’ part ’em…

Patient, working every hitch,

Breathing space between the threads,

Divining where a life has doubled back upon its past:

Git it right at the last,

And all will come un’notted of itself.

A’ strings? A’ strings?

Have you loom? Have you harp?

A’ strings for me t’day?

Bleeding strings, throttled strings, crippled strings.

They cut too quick, he says, beneath his breath:

Impatient, wantin’ free, leavin’ ragged edges

Left to bleed – worse, t’ fray! T’ ravel out,

Vanish right away.

He searches under stairs and under beds,

Beneath the boards, and hid by attic dust,

Down between the pots of grains,

Or else entangled in the drains;

Perhaps it’s in the cellar with the mulching pot,

Or caught within a tether in the milking shed;

Snagged upon a mattress spring, jarring in the harpsichord;

A sullen spinster’s leavings, or a cat’s plaything?

If there’s trouble, there’s a ’notted string!

{String, strand, line, thread, rope, wool, yarn, weave,

 Web, twist, cotton, peel, warp and woof, cable, fleece,

Leather, net, chain and stitch, hemp, hair, sinew, vein.

And gut.}

Here’s a ’not t’ why yi’ daughter flies int’ yi’ face,

’N’ why yi’ wife is gripped in iron brow;

T’ why yi’ son keels at the first, slights yi t’ ’is ’orse;

This ’not, I found within yi’ drawer. I can untie it;

First be warned that all that’s bound within these loops

And quand’ries will be freed around your ’ouse, yer ward,

May even bring yi’ market down!

I watched him work a gang of threads,

Caught behind a curtain on the bed,

Heard the lazy roof return to its place,

Saw the smile leave the housemaid’s face,

Watched the mistress find her leg,

The husband learn to beg,

The son retread his flight,

The daughter disentangle from the night,

The baby find a song within his cry,

The aged grand-dame needing not a tear to glint her eye,

The river flooding gold across the floor,

The shaggy bearskin draped across the door,

And as he pulled the last neck from its noose,

I heard the words he said.

A’ strings? Havya a’ strings?

He’ll ask you, Sir, to tie his boots, all buttons else:

I cannot tie – I mustn’t tie – no loops for me! I only loose!

He’ll loose the knot that draws the ship onto the rock,

That leaves the soldier rigid in the bullet’s path,

The mother’s hold upon the boldest son forlorn,

The sulking husband tugged toward the pretty eye,

Purse strings wrongly payed, too tight or over wide,

The swift chirurgeon’s unhealed overstitch,

The mis-made and unfiring match:

So’times, a love ’not’s t’ draw apart, and then I weep,

Fer ’eartstrings shouldn’t not be tied.

Is this yi’ ’trothal rope, m’boy?

Aye, I c’n see she does not love;

I’ll set yi’ loose for a penny-ha’f –

He held the knot above the hanging cords,

Bristling knobs and loops, took a ragged end,

Drew it through a swollen hitch. The lover pitched,

Knees caught his flood of tears and knuckles

Kissed his forehead, tenderly.

D’na fret the lad, he said.