#research dump

HMS Leda was an 18pdr-armed, 38 gun, Fifth Rate frigate, built at the Chatham Royal Dockyard. The ship went on to be the lead vessel of a class of 47 large frigates.

Two of the Leda class still exist, and one - HMS Trincomalee - was, for some time, moored in Falmouth.

So pretty. I know that's not the point.

There was also a minesweeper called Leda but I can't find a Cornish connection. Not that there needs to be one, I suppose. Ted and Leda's father might have been interested in war ships in general.

Epigraph from Chapter 11 of The Ink Black Heart. A poem about god, and the unknowable nature of god, and what if we look for him our whole lives, and he's not there at the end, like some parlour game of hide and seek that goes on too long, and when you rip the blindfold off in terror, everyone is gone?

My favourite quotes about Emily Dickinson are

So sparsely indeed is the whole of her life documented that her biography is largely a matter of inference ...

... between the actual person and the writer of the poems there is a gulf which no amount of documentation could span.

I like that we know virtually nothing; I like that she made copies of her work and wrapped them to be found after she died. She knew she was good. 😁

You don't have to put up with my scrawls this time, there's a beautiful copy in the poet's own hand:

From

A short scene from the video of Tempted appears the TV adaptation of The Cuckoo's Calling.

Cormoran Strike meets DI Eric Wardle to discuss Lula Landry's death. Wardle mentions Deeby Macc and Strike doesn't recognise the name. Later, while walking outdoors he asks Robin if she knows who Deeby Macc is, and she says yes, and on their return to the office she finds the video to show him, and says, 'So, this is Deeby.'

This is the video on YouTube:

Also available via a range of music services online, list via Jazz's website.

According to Wikipedia, Tempted is from Jazz's second album, Fleurever. It was "premiered on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 Radio on January 3, 2017 on Apple Music, but was released for digital download as a single on iTunes on January 6, 2017."

"The song peaked at number 91 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart, which became his highest and only charting single to date."

Songwriting credits to Jahmarie Adams (Jazz himself) Tyler Williams (producer T-minus), Micheal Lantz and Sean Fischer.

Artwork:

Regarding the video, a contemporary fanzine article says, Toronto rapper Jazz Cartier laid out his big career ambitions to The FADER in 2015. With the video for "Tempted," the first single off his upcoming album Fleurever, he displays acting chops for a big budget action movie. The clip is a classic "James Bond gets captured by the bad guys at a fancy party" scene and, like any good hero, Jazz makes an impressive escape.

In an email to The FADER, Jazz Cartier said, ""Tempted" is my first single off Fleurever and it's an intro of what's to come. For the visual, I wanted to play off the energy of the track and bring a cinematic experience that includes suspense and edge."

The song seems to have been regarded by many fans as underrated, with many comments to this effect under the YouTube video.

The grave of Mary Nichols features a sleeping angel on a bed of clouds.

The grave of Elizabeth de Munck (1767-1841)

From

More on the pelican motif - a symbol of parental love and sacrifice:

Epilogue to from Chapter One, A Moment, by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge ... second verse still takes my breath away every time I read it. 🖤

Scheherazade from The Thousand and One Nights ... King Shahryar ... loathing all womankind ... marries and kills a new woman each day until no more candidates can be found. 🖤

The epigraph to The Prologue of The Ink Black Heart is from Gray's Anatomy.

Buried in Highgate. 🖤

His break-out paper was on the anatomy of the eye. 🖤

Epigraph to Chapter 9 - The Sleep of Sigismund by Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow (1820-1897) poet and novelist, achieved sudden success with a volume of poems in 1863 but was dismissed by contemporaries as writing "too much and too long".

The poem starts with The Doomed King pursued by a sleuth-hound (a Scottish term for bloodhound, a type of dog used to track men by scent).

But then he wakes to the voice of the Queen, in an embroidered silken bed with his golden shield that served him well in battle hanging close by. The Queen has become used to seeing her husband's sleep disturbed and asks him to confide in her, but he minimises his suffering.

To others, life appears to be good for the King and Queen. Enemies are vanquished and peace proclaimed, 'Hail! hail! hail!' the people cry. Then night falls and the King lies down, and finds himself in Syria, pursued by Saracens.

Again he wakes up in his bed, and this time the Queen insists he must speak to her.

Weird being used in the sense of fate, I think.

So the King confesses; two years ago when his situation was dire, he made a pact with a white witch who appeared to him in the woods.

He agrees, reasoning that waking is man's life and sleep is nothing but a little death, and hands over a plumèd cap as a token. "I will risk the sleep to shine in the waking." The Queen thinks this was a bad bargain.

They sleep, and the King dreams he is dead and lying in state, candles surround him and his cold hands stuff as horn by their cold palms meet. His Queen comes and lays her face on his chest, he thinks she is bereft, but she declared she has come to take her ring from his cold fingers, having never loved him.

This is the worst dream of all, and when the Queen comes to him in the morning and urges him to return to the white-witch to put things right, he agrees. If the witch will not give the night back to him in return for the day, he will offer his kingdom, as he has no heir who would be wronged.

The witch restores night to Sigismund, and sends him away with Malva having taken their crown and given him back his hunting cap. They find a shelter in the woods and Sigismund dreams of a river valley full of happy and mild strangers. He calls to Malva and she appears with a child beside her. Sigismund wakes and knows he has done the right thing, and thanks Malva.

When they wake in the morning their servant arrives to tell them there has been coup and his knights have sworn allegiance to the new king. There is a price on his head and he has to fly. They journey on and find a quiet place to live. Sigismund sells the gems from his cap and buys a homestead lone and low ... a field, a copse, a melon patch and mulberry trees.

He and Malva are happy - they are too busy to be sad - and the heir is born. Then, the witch finds them, and offers a new bargain.

I think "fere" means friend/companion.

Sigismund says NAY, and the white-witch drifts into the gold of the sunset. Sigismund and Malva decide that the white-witch was sent to test them, and did them good.

After a long day harvesting the hay, Sigismund dreams he is being recalled by the people of his lost kingdom. When he wakes, his knights are there, begging him and Malva to return, which is not a pleasant thought as he looks around him and finds he dislikes the idea of someone else bringing in his crop of wheat. But they go.