Mab’s Winter Knight: Sequentia ad Reginam Magnencij!

Hello everyone! I decided to mix things up a bit this week and so I will be posting two poems for which have significant meaning to me. The first one is a sequel to Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, while the other will be a retelling of the infamous Queen of Witches, Baba Yaga.

       Based loosely off the Dresden Files series as well as a plethora of lore on faeries in general, including the queen known as Mab in the common tongue, Mab’s Winter Knight is a sequel and retelling of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, which is told from one of her winter-touched and most loyal knights. The saying goes with faeries that when you make a deal, give them your full name, or leave them a gift of insult, they can possess you. However, it is made clear that the man wishes to fulfill her goals (outlined in as-of-yet unwritten poem). I chose to do Spenserian and a sequel to The Faerie Queen because it is one of my favorite poems of all time and I have my doubts as to the analytical prose and concepts. In a time when Pagans were a plenty (albeit hunted for their beliefs), Spenser seemed to write this during a time of arcane mysteries, unsettling events, and perhaps a personal experience – at least that is my interpretation.

       As a Faerie Queen, Mab has control over the people in more ways than people may think. She can control them with full name and other mystical ways. However, I see the Queen as having specialized knights of her own, similar to Baba Yaga's as expressed in multiple reiterations including the Pathfinder RPG series.

       The rhyming scale of the Spenserian stanza is a nine-line stanza which includes eight iambic pentameter lines with the beat of “ababbcbc” and a final Alexandrian beat of "c".

Please enjoy this reinterpretation of a classic!

Mab’s Winter Knight: Sequentia ad Reginam Magnencij! (A sequel to The Faerie Queen)

Oh Faerie Queen who art my and thine,

Wisp me forward to your icy embrace,

Conceal me in thy love o’ goddess mine,

Lest forever deal mine own heart disgrace.

Speak my full name and forever beg lace,

My soul to your bond in heart and ahold.

Cometh to thee o’ your sweet little grace,

Until death do I part, thy soldier ace.

Thy story shall then told from truest face.

Winter is rising shallows are hollow,

Frozen descent into the empty crust.

Icy stormy rage in the mind to follow,
Snow storms in the heart melting into dust.
Cold emotions slow to creep a'sorrow.
Blizzard deep inside his forever trust,
Sleet across the planes of Gaia must.
Winter Guardian of eternal life,

Rise now before me and face all your strife.

Of winter and witches thou serve me well,

Call me your queen, your faerie or it all,

Mine own winter knight thou of frozen hell.
Rise then and stand now so prideful and tall,
Take this boon and speak all the world to tell,
"Thy wrath of the Faerie Queen all shall call
And bow down before their new priest o' Gaul."
Send across the lands my frozen breath.

Now watch and see the cross succumb to death.

And thus the knight followed the Faerie Queen,

Into the seasons and all of the lands,

Spreading across the lands of the whispered dream.
"Come ye followers of cross and make bands,

For not belief in Her will rise her steam,
And wrath will follow all across the sands."
Many years passed and soon many hands,
Took hold of their new queen and left the cross.

New ages came and other dripped in loss.