♘

“I’ve a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string to you. And if you were to leave, I’m afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I’d take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you’d forget me.”

Sumer is icumen in - performed by the Hilliard Ensemble.

[Harleian MSS. 978. f. 5.]

Sumer is i-cumen in,  Lhude sing cuccu! Groweth sed, And bloweth med, And springeth the wde nu: Sing cuccu! cuccu!  Awe bleteth after lamb, Lhouth after calve cu; Bulluc sterteth, Bucke verteth, Murie sing cuccu! Cuccu, cuccu!  Wel singes thu cuccu, Ne swik thou nauer nu! Sing cuccu nu! Sing cuccu!

dragon fights

in the margins of the prayer book of charles the bold, a diminuitive prayer book (measuring about 5 x 3.5 in, or 13 x 9 cm) comissioned by charles the bold, duke of burgundy, and written and illuminated in flanders, late 15th c.