Words of the Month - Plain Sailing (Part I)

         Nowadays sailing may seem like a niche hobby for the yacht-owning wealthy few, but for centuries it was integral to the lives and economies of general society throughout the English-speaking world.  So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that a huge number of everyday English phrases have their origins in sailing terminology and slang.  Indeed, I collected so many that I’m going to give you only half today.  Today’s words and phrases are ones that derive from parts of a ship, rigging, and other nautical objects.

know or show the ropes - This one’s pretty obvious.  The ropes are a ship’s rigging, very complicated and vital to know.  The phrase was being used metaphorically on land by the late 19th century.

hand over fist - How you haul or climb a rope, but now also anything done quickly and steadily (from about 1803).

the bitter end - the part of a cable which is around the bitts.  The bitts are strong posts to which cables are fastened.  If a rope is extended to the bitter end, it’s as far as it can go.  The phrase began to be used metaphorically around 1835.

chock-a-block - a pulley (chock) and its framework (block), so close to another that they touch and prevent further movement.  The extension to any items crammed together is from around 1840.

cut of his jib - The jib is a large, triangular foresail of a ship, and sailors would judge the state of a ship by the state of the jibs.  By 1821 the cut of his jib was used figuratively to refer to the appearance of a person.  I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone use this in real life, although I’ve certainly encountered it while reading.  Maybe there are dialects in which it’s still current, but I’m guessing that this one, unlike most of today’s other phrases, is obsolete.

scuttlebutt - a cask of drinking water on the deck.  We can break that down to butt, meaning barrel + scuttle, meaning a hole cut in something (including the ship itself, if you want to sink it).  The meaning “gossip” comes from around 1900, from the habit of sailors gathering around the scuttlebutt to chat.

pooped - The poop deck of a ship is in the back (stern), and if big waves break over that rear deck, the ship is pooped.  Figuratively, therefore, to be pooped is to be overwhelmed and defeated.  It seems reasonable to me to assume this is the origin of the meaning “to be exhausted,” although apparently some people think the “tired” meaning is “perhaps imitative of the sound of heavy breathing.”  Which sounds more plausible to you?

even keel - The keel is the lowest and principal timber of a ship’s hull, and of course a ship on an even keel is sailing smoothly (since the mid-16th c.).  The metaphorical sense is from at least the mid-19th century.  This is also where we get the phrase to keel over, meaning “to capsize,” which was used figuratively of non-ships falling over only a few years later, by 1833.

pipe down - The bo’sun’s whistle was called a pipe, and by 1833 the bo’sun piped the sailors down when he blew the signal dismissing them from duty.  Hence, "to get quiet," from about 1900.

first rate - the highest class of warships in the British Navy in the 166os.

down the hatch - The hatch is the opening in a ship’s deck through which sailors and cargo pass into the hold.  This dates to the mid-13th century from an Old English word for a gate or grating.  The metaphorical use of drinking or eating something may be as recent as about 1930.

slush fund - Slush is the fat collected as waste in the galley (kitchen) of a ship.  This slush could be sold, and the money from it was either the cook’s bonus or, in some ships, spent or distributed at the discretion of the commanding officer, without need to account for it.  By 1874 slush fund had acquired the metaphorical meaning of a sum of money to be used for bribery or other illicit purposes.

room to swing a cat - No cats were harmed in the making of this expression, but many men were.  The cat in question was the cat-o’-nine-tails, a knotted, multi-thonged whip used as punishment in the British navy until 1881.  The phrase dates to 1771.

wide berth - Berth originally referred to sufficient space for maneuvering a ship (17th c.), so giving another ship a wide berth made sure there wouldn’t be a collision.  The word “berth” acquired the meaning of a specific space for ships to anchor or sailors to sleep, and then came ashore and was used of things other than ships by the end of the 18th century.  It may have been Sir Walter Scott in 1829 who popularized the phrase “give a wide berth.”

        I guess I got you these phrases a little late for International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19, but who says we can’t celebrate all month?  Or perhaps you’re more the type to don your Bermuda shorts and docksiders.  Of course, most of these phrases originated with nothing so fun and glamorous as today’s stereotypes of either pirates or yacht-owners.  Sailing a ship was hard labor, and it took a huge crew to man a large naval or merchant ship - which is why so many people were employed in maritime jobs, and why so much maritime jargon entered mainstream vocabulary.

        I’ll be doing a whole ‘nother post on more phrases from nautical roots in the future, so stay tuned!

[Pictures: Frontispiece of General and Rare Memorials Pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation by John Dee, hand colored woodcut, 1577 (Image from Christie’s);

Dutch Clipper Ship, wood block print on postcard by anonymous artist, 1947 (Image from The Magic Postcard Store);

Ship Bonetta Salem Departing from Leghorn, woodcut by John Held, Jr., first half 20th c. (Image from Princeton University Art Museum).]

Windows

         I like windows and doors.  I like them visually, architecturally, metaphorically, and in stories.  Here’s a little selection of relief block prints showing windows.  In all of these cases we’re on the inside looking out, and in all these cases the views are not necessarily the focus of the image, but rather we’re exploring the way the windows frame their views.

        The first piece by Charles Smith has lots of very fine wood engraving detail.  The curtains have a detailed pattern and the wall of the building across the street is entirely filled by close cross-hatching.  We can see people going about their business on the sidewalk outside, and the charming flowers on the windowsill.  This is a very ordinary scene, made into something special by an artist who observed, and transformed it into a block of wood,

then ink and paper.

        The second piece, by Dave Morgan, shows much less of the view: just a glimpse of greenery beyond the lightweight curtain.  This captures such beautiful light, and such a beautiful sense of serenity.  It’s described as a reduction print, but I think some areas must have been inked separately so that the golden brown of the floor or the greens of the plants were not rolled across the entire block.  It’s very cleverly done.

        Our third window is much simpler, and includes still less of a view, because now the focus is the man standing with his back to us at the window looking out.  It’s by Benvenuto Disertori, and you can see a couple more by him in my prior post Block Printmaker Disertori - funnily enough, including another view of another window.  As for this man, we don’t know what he sees, or what his feelings about the view might be.  He’s almost cartoon-like in his simplicity.  I like how there are no outlines between the man and the shadowed wall.  I’ve paired this one with a block print of my own

that also includes a silhouetted figure gazing out a window, from which no scene is visible to the person viewing the art.  They’re even positioned the same way in the frame of the picture.  And no, I had not seen Disertori’s piece when I made mine, but after all, other artists, too, have come up with similar compositions.

        I’ll finish off the collection of windows with two more of my own rubber block prints.  This first one is the view from a window in a small village in Lancashire, England, from a sketch I made because I especially liked the chimney pots.  (You can see I had trouble with the inking of this one, so I should probably scan another of the edition that’s a little blacker, but I kept this one because I kind of liked the misty look.)  For this one the view is almost the focus, except that I did choose to include the framing of the window and curtains instead of simply making a block print of the view all by itself.  And finally I have another window in which the view is visible, but indistinct, and the focus is really the collection of fancy little glass bottles on the windowsill.  I said I like windows, and another thing I like is little glass bottles!

        Do you have a favorite view from your own windows where you live?  Or a view you saw once in another place that’s stuck in your imagination?  How often do you actually stop and look out a window when you’re going by?

[Pictures: Charleston Window, wood engraving by Charles W. Smith, 20th c (perhaps 1920s?) (Image from Newfields);

Springtime Window, color reduction woodcut by Dave Morgan, 2021 (Image from The New Leaf Gallery);

Man at a Window, woodcut by Benvenuto M. Disertori, before 1968 (Image from Davis Museum at Wellesley College);

Nightshade in the Sunlight, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2007 (Image from AEGN, now sold out);

Window at Yealand Conyers, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 1998 (Image from NydamPrints);

Small Glass Bottles, rubber block reduction print by AEGNydam, 2017 (Image from NydamPrints).]

Unique Named Dragons

        Did you know that according to a 13th century monk, you had to watch out and repel the dragons that liked to be abroad in the eve of Midsummer?  We should be safe by now, so let's look at some dragons today.

         Modern fantasy generally considers dragons to be a species (or lots of related species), but during the early days of dragon folklore, it was more common that each dragon was its own individual monstrous thing.  I introduced a number of these one-of-a-kind dragons in my prior post O is for One-and-Only, where you can find Yamata no Orochi, Azi Sruvara, Tarasque, and a number of unique non-dragonoid monsters.  (Sometimes it’s pretty hard to tell whether something should be classed as a dragon or not.  What about the Velue and the Oillepheist, for example?)  Today I present you with a few more unique, named dragons to add to the list.

        France has been remarkably prone to unique monsters over the centuries.  Luckily it was also remarkably prone to saints.

        In Metz, France it was the Graoully, a dragon who took up residence along with a huge swarm of snakes in the Roman amphitheater.  (This was in the 3rd century when the Roman Empire was still a thing.)  They poisoned the whole area.  The Graoully was driven away by St Clement, or possibly drowned by him in the River Seille.

        In Rouen, France the Gargouille was a bat-winged, long-necked dragon who lived in a cave by the Seine and could breathe fire or spout water, and who flattened crops with the flapping of his wings.  Despite his size and ferocity, he was easily tamed by St Romanus and the sign of the cross.  Despite his new tameness, he was then burned, except for his unburnable head.  This was hung on the cathedral, where it inspired some medieval architect to invent the gargoyle.

        In Vaucluse, France it was the Coulobre.  Her name comes from Latin coluber, meaning simply “snake,” and today the colubridae are a family of snakes that are mostly harmless and non-venomous (except the boomslang).  But this one was different: huge, with spiny wings, and so ugly that even other dragons despised her.  She lived in a deep spring, where she gave birth to poisonous salamanders.  It was St Veranus who hunted her down and forced her to fly away into the wilderness in the Alps.  (I should note that the Coulobre might not actually be unique.  Another attacked Petrarch when he was staying in the area, and another was defeated in Dordogne by St Front.  It’s unclear whether these are all the same species, or different unique individuals with the same name.)

        In Poitiers, France the dragon to beware was the Grand’Goule, with a gaping mouth and a tail with a scorpion sting.  It lived in the tunnels that ran under the Gallo-Roman walls near the Sainte-Croix Abbey, and it devoured the occasional nun.  St Radégonde killed it with a weaponized prayer that shot the beast like a crossbow bolt.

        Moving lastly to Italy, the Tarantasio was a pestilential dragon that lived in Lake Gerundo, and particularly enjoyed eating children.  It had large horns and webbed feet, and was killed by someone, although there is a great deal of disagreement over who did the deed.  It is said to be the origin of the coat of arms of the Visconti family, even though that’s simply a large anthropophagus snake called the “biscione.”  Another image said to depict the Tarantasio is a carving on the facade of the Duomo in Milan, even though it’s hornless and looks like a cross between a dinosaur and a puppy.

        These stories all have a pretty similar plot, which also appears with any number of unnamed run-of-the-mill dragons all across Europe.  Another common element of the story is that after the offending monster is destroyed, some relic or effigy of the beast gets paraded around town on an annual basis, and/or displayed in the local church/castle/town hall.  Although this plot may not seem terribly interesting to us today, it’s important to consider how vital it is always to remember that oppression can be resisted, cruelty can be defeated, and virtue can triumph.

[Pictures: Procession of the Graoully, engraving(?) from Dembour et Gangel, 1840/1852 (Image from limédia galeries);

La Gargouille de Rouen, engraving by Guillaume Cabasson, 1885 (Image from New York Public Library);

St-Romain with the Gargouille, stained glass at the church of Saint-Romain in Wy-dit-Joli-Village, neo-Gothic (Image from Wikimedia Commons);

Saint-Véran and the Coulobre, sculpture - can’t find any info about artist or date (Image from The Wyrm’s Lair);

La Grand’Goule, wooden sculpture by Jean Gargot, 1677 (Image from Alienor.org);

Biscione, coat of arms of the House of Visconti on the Archbishop’s Palace, Milan, mid-14th c. (Image from Wikimedia Commons);

Tarantasio?, sculpture on facade of  Duomo di Milano, by Carlo Pellicani, early 19th c. (Image from Yes Milano).]

Magical Musical Monsters

         This little collection of musical creatures begins with a bird, which might not seem particularly magical.  There are certainly plenty of birds with exceptional songs throughout folklore, and some of them are even magical, but this bird doesn’t just sing birdsong like all those others.  No, it sports a human head and arms with which it plays an instrument.  Frankly, it seems like kind of a waste to force a bird to resort to human means to produce its music, but this creature makes music so heavenly that one can never tire of hearing it, so I guess it’s not complaining.  It’s called karyōbinga in Japanese (from kalavinca in Sanskrit), and it lives in the Buddhist paradise Gokuraku jōdo.  (I should apologize for implying by the title of this post that it’s a monster.  I just couldn’t resist the alliteration.)  This wood block print by Hokusai is masterful, with wonderful details on the wings and on the flowing robes that morph into tail plumes.

        We turn now to a creature that is just as musical but certainly very far from exemplifying celestial beauty.  There are several strange monsters in this wood block print from a book of emblems.  The emblem illustrated “The four passions of man,” although I confess I can’t quite figure out what four passions those might be, and which monster represents which.  So forget all that and just concentrate on the funny little guy in the lower right.  I think he’s actually adorable, a sort of animate bagpipe playing his own nose.  Particularly when you compare him with the other monsters, I think I’d definitely prefer whatever passion he’s representing!  Maybe it’s the passion for music.

        Finally I had to add one more fabulous creature with a musical nose, even though I can’t find any wood block prints of these.  The final two illustrations depict the siranis, a creature that can be found in The Wonders of Creation, by 13th century Iranian cosmographer Zakariya al-Qazwini.  According to him, the siranis has twelve holes along its snout, and when it breathes it makes beautiful music.  This music is so beautiful that animals gather around, and the siranis can then catch and eat whatever it wants.  On a fun etymological note, the name siranis actually derives from Greek seiren, the sea nymph who lures sailors with her song.  Obviously something went rather astray along the journey as this magical creature travelled from Greece to Iran!  These depictions of it are quite charming, and while the second one is by a more masterful hand that gives it a lithe grace, you really can’t beat the adorably goofy poodle hairdo on the first!

        Music is such a powerful force that it’s no surprise that mythical creatures from the sublime to the ridiculous produce it as part of their magic.  Obviously the best one to hear would be the first, but I can’t help feeling very curious indeed to hear the others.

[Pictures: Karyōbinga, color wood block print by Hokusai, ca. 1820-33 (Image from The Met);

Emblema. LXVI, wood block print from Emblematum Tyrocinia by Matthäus Holtzwart, 1581 (Image from Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum);

Siranis, illumination from The Wonders of Creation by Qazvini, early 15th century (Image from Smithsonian Freer Gallery);

Siranis, illumination from The Wonders of Creation by Qazwini,1280 (Image from Bavarian State Library).]

Of Smokers and Gardens

         I don’t have any biographical information about Cesar T. Miranda (Argentina, 1922-2014), so we’ll have to take his pieces purely on their own merits.  Unfortunately, even that can’t be as detailed a look as I’d like, since they have lots of very fine texture which I can’t quite make out on the computer screen.  Another one I’d really love to examine in person!

        The fact of the very fine lines leads me to guess that Miranda worked with wood engraving tools, even though these pieces are listed as “woodcut.”  Indeed, in the second piece it does look like there’s some wood grain showing, which would confirm woodcut carved on a plank, even if the tiny thin lines look like they were scratched out with engraving tools.  All the more reason I wish I could get a closer look at these to get a clearer sense of Miranda’s method.

        The question of technique is only one of the interesting things about Miranda’s work.  He also has an interesting style that combines representationalism with a very abstract use of shapes and patterns.  The first piece shows a bird flying across a landscape of lance-shaped trees.  I love the way the bird has at least five wings and a glow as if it were almost a shooting star.  I like the way the wings, tail and wind(?) seem to weave among the trees.  I like the patterns on some of the trees.  The sky appears to be entirely filled with fine textures that look almost scribbly, and yet evoke distant hills and birds.

        The second piece is called “Smoker in the Window,” and although smoking is not something that I normally find at all attractive, there are once again some really interesting choices here.  The way the rectangle of the window cuts across the man looks to me more like a noir-style shadow of a window.  The texture around the mouth looks like deeply wrinkled lips, but the skritchy texture all over the face doesn’t seem to correspond to anything representational.

My favorite thing about this one is the fun clouds of smoke.

        Finally, an exuberant garden in which the flowers look like fireworks.  Once again it’s the engraving-style textures that give this woodcut its unique look, with zigzags, crosshatching, and an effervescent riot of shapes.  It’s not easy to give an impression of a wildly blooming garden without any color, but Miranda has managed it.

[Pictures: Paisaje con Pájaro, woodcut by Cesar T. Miranda, 1964;

Fumador en la Ventana, woodcut by Miranda, 1964;

Jardín Púrpura, woodcut by Miranda, 1964 (All images from Rhode Island School of Design).]

Sexton's Kind

         Most of the older fantasy poems I share are primarily about telling a story.  The more modern poems on themes of mythology, fantasy, and fairy tale tend to be about using fantasy images and references to explore the self, society, and so on.  Today I want to share a famous poem by Anne Sexton (U.S.A., 1928-1974), who was known for her confessional poetry, which she used in part to explore her own mental illness and troubled personal relationships.  No one would call her a fantasy poet, but in this poem she calls on the mythology of witches.  Because the poem is relatively recent (1960) and not in the public domain, I’m excerpting only the first verse, but I strongly encourage you to read the entire poem (3 verses) at Poetry Foundation.

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,   

haunting the black air, braver at night;   

dreaming evil, I have done my hitch   

over the plain houses, light by light:   

lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.   

A woman like that is not a woman, quite.   

I have been her kind.

        The imagery throughout the poem is powerful, precise, and both shocking and moving.  This makes an excellent illustration of how fantasy can be used for far more than simply telling a story with magic in it.  It can evoke both the darkest and brightest corners of our hearts, it can help us wrestle with the limits of logic and science, and it can open us to new ways of considering issues we had thought we knew.  You can read articles analyzing this poem, but I think it’s most powerful if you just let those fantasy images and emotions move you; if you spend too much time trying to assign specific meanings to specific words and phrases you may be missing the point, and you’re almost certainly missing the magic.

[Picture: Wood engraving from Compendium Maleficarum by Francesco Maria Guazza, 1608 (Image from Wikimedia Commons);

Excerpt from Her Kind by Anne Sexton, from To Bedlam and Part Way Back, 1960 (from Poetry Foundation).]

Robin's Nest in the Studio

         Today's post is about the creation of my most recent rubber block print.  It’s directly based on a photograph I took in 2020 when, during the COVID lockdown, robins nested in the forsythia right outside our front door.  In fact, I took dozens of pictures over the course of three weeks, recording my new neighbors’ development from turquoise eggs to wrinkly pink hatchlings to scruffy brown fledglings.  This photo remains one of my all-time favorites, but for a long time I didn’t seriously consider making a block print from it.  I thought it wouldn’t work very well because it’s got so many fiddly details and because the bright colors are such an important part of what makes it a beautiful image.

        So here we are, four years later, and I’ve finally made a block print after all.  What changed my mind?  Well, back in 2020 I wrote a poem about the robins’ nest, and I decided that the poem should be included in my forthcoming book Bittersweetness & Light.  Every poem and story in the book will have illustrations, and although of course most of those illustrations are block prints, my first plan was to include the photograph as the illustration for the poem.  But I wasn’t sure I liked the less consistent design of having a mix of such different styles of illustrations, and my beta readers agreed.  Plan B, therefore, was to make a faux block print, which I do digitally.  (If you want to know about that process, you can read my prior post about how I make my Faux Woodcuts.)  I was quite pleased with the way that came out and put it in the book, and moved on with my life.

        But the digital version turned out to be a victim of its own success: it helped me see how this image really could work as an actual relief block print, and when I needed something to carve during a summer show, I decided to use the digital version as the design for a physical version.  I printed it out on the printer, traced over all the lines, and transferred the design to rubber to carve.  I used the harder rubber that I dislike, because I have a bunch of it and I thought it would work relatively well for all the fine lines.  I used the oil-based Caligo Safe Wash ink so that I could then use watercolor to paint in the colors of flowers, leaves, and eggs.

        It certainly isn't as bright as the photograph, but in the end I’m very happy with how this ended up, even though (or perhaps because) it’s fairly different from my usual style.  My next show will be in just over a month: Roxbury Open Studios on October 5-6, so that will be the Robin’s Nest’s debut and my first chance to see whether it makes other people as happy as it makes me!  (And yes, this is the version that will be accompanying my poem in the book.)

[Pictures: Robin’s Nest, photo by AEGNydam, 2020;

Robin’s Nest, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]