Here are the quotations for the coming week (Jan 27th to Feb 2nd):
1. (he) braced his back against the bulge of the red earthenware to hold down the head. This gave him just one second's purchase, and he made the most of it. Then he was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog ... to and fro on the floor, up and down in great circles, but his eyes were red, and he held on ...he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honour of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked...
2. From time to time a greenish wave of the Northern Lights would roll across the hollow of the high heavens, flick like a flag and disappear; or a meteor would crackle from darkness to darkness trailing a shower of sparks behind. Then they could see the ridged and furrowed surface of the floe all tipped and laced with strange colours - red, copper, and bluish; but in the ordinary starlight everything turned to one frost-bitten gray...
3. ...he wanted to scratch, but that made it worse; and then he lay down on the sand and rolled and rolled and rolled, and every time he rolled the cake crumbs tickled him worse and worse and worse ... it spoiled his temper, but it didn't make the least difference to the cake-crumbs. They were inside his skin, and they tickled. So he went home, very angry indeed and horribly scratchy ..
The sources of last week's extracts (Jan 20th to 26th) are as follows:
1. ("The Gold I gather/ Comes into England / Out of deep water") This is from "The Runes on Weland's Sword" in Puck of Pook's Hill (1906).
2. ("Buy my English posies ! /Here's your choice unsold !....") This is from "The Flowers" (1895) in The Seven Seas.
3. ("See you the windy levels spread / About the gates of Rye?") This os from "Puck's Song" in Here are the quotations for the coming week (Jan 27 to Feb 2):
In the NRG we have just pubished notes by Alastair Wilson on "The Song of the Sons" from The Seven Seas.
Good wishes to all
John R
