Easter
by Joyce Kilmer
The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Friday, 29 March 2013
HAVE A BLESSED GOOD FRIDAY!
Good Friday cross buns, or hot cross buns, are traditionally served on Good Friday - the Friday before Easter. Good Friday is celebrated as the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, and the buns are marked with the symbol of the cross as a reminder of His sacrifice.
Here you can read a nice article about Good Friday cross buns.
Monday, 25 March 2013
MEDIEVAL BALLADS
Ballads are short,
anonymous narrative poems or songs which have been preserved and
elaborated by oral transmission over the centuries; many have
been passed from one country to another with suitable modifications
to local needs. This happened to many Irish and Scottish ballads
which sprang up in modified forms in America and Australia.
Because of their highly mutable
oral form, it is almost
impossible to date most
ballads. After Caxton first set up the printing press in 1477, ballads spread rapidly.
They were an essentially popular tradition of the
unschooled and illiterate, which recalled
the early oral verse narratives
of the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons.
Most ballads were set to music, as they were meant to
be sung rather than read. Thus ballads
are usually in simple quatrains (four-line stanzas) with a repeated refrain (the repetition of one or more
lines). They are simple in form, plot and language,
so as to make them easier to remember.
Ballads can be classified in many different
categories, from border ballads about the rivalry between the English and the
Scottish people, to ballads of outlaws
celebrating the lives of outlaws or
criminals such as the cycle of Robin Hood,
to ballads of magic recounting
stories about fairies, witches
and ghosts, to ballads of love and domestic
tragedy, to town ballads which served as a polemical
commentary on difficult urban conditions.
Here you can find useful material for revision.
Here you can find useful material for revision.
Lord Randal is a traditional Scottish ballad which tells "with a certain malicious humour" the sad tale of a noble called Lord Randal. It probably derives from the late Middle Ages.
Geordie is a famous English ballad which presents a rather complex narrative: the story-teller, or narrator, meets a young woman who is lamenting the fate of her lover.
Its date of composition is unknown, it may be dated to the late Middle Ages; it is still widely known today and often sung in traditional as well as modernized versions.
Here you can download a worksheet about the medieval ballad Geordie.
