notes from Mikal:
Many of our nobles ask me if I really do that much research for poems or tales I tell at
feasts. I suppose I have it coming, I pride myself on seeming to be as lazy as possible.
But, yes. I do the research and work out all the possible information. This poem was
written in honor of Duke Syr Con MacNeil, on the event of his second reign in Calontir. It
is a Drottkveat with some Celtic influence, and was inspired by those poems that praise
Kings. It also includes the nickname I used for him...(after all, he beat me in bardic
contests regularly. Oh those times I won though! I did win! Stop laughing, it is true....)
I wandered the wave-road
To hear the wind's whispers
there cut on the crestings
the sign of his keel board
Was he here, here before me?
Njords fields lead me farther
To stand in the Franks land
War-horses crushed heather
Like the beat of his drum
Was he here, here before me?
Great battles did beckon
With songs in their banners
War men I heard marching
And singing his meters
Was he here, here before me?
I followed the fallen
Sky bourne to the fair land
The Father of Fighting
Watching the Falcon
Was he here, here before me?
Before the All father's
Hall of great feasting
The Portion of Poets
The War Hawk had poured there
Was he here, here before me?
I spoke to the singers
What part of the shoreline
Was made by his Muses
To give him the Mead-draught?
Was he here, here before me?
"The board of great Braggi
Is set for the Bard-king
And quaffs of pure kenning
Does Conn called The Cunning!"
For he was here before me
He was here long before me.