(Russell J Turner)
Bankera fuligineoalba
...based on the legend of Mael Brigte and Sigurd Eysteinsson, as retold in ‘Storyland’ by Amy Jeffs...
A field is chosen, forty men are set
on each side to conclude a murderous moot ‒
the Bucktoothed and the Mighty will be met
to settle some obscure and dark dispute.
Yet Sigurd, sly, brings eighty to the fray ‒
all Pictish heads soon severed by the Norse ‒
as Eysteinsson, triumphant, claims the day,
he ties Mael Brigte’s skull upon his horse.
But galloping, victorious, with his kin,
his victim draws a last ironic breath
and teeth dig deep into deceitful skin ‒
infection follows, fever, pain and death.
The moral, for a cheat who claims the prize ‒
don’t let your foe’s incisors near your thighs.
RJT
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