This was such a fun group excercise, and I was so excited when Lady Kaaren came to me to do the text. She had given me the conditions to try and keep the text to Eldred's Anglo-Saxon persona, and so immediately alliterative verse came to mind. However, I wanted to use the "bob and wheel" style envoi and additional metric considerations of the revived alliterative verse of Middle English and the "Gawain and the Green Knight" poet more specifically. I thought this might more closely approximate a formal tone and presentation for an English-speaking audience, as well as enhance the finality of the pronouncement with a metrically distinct, rhymed ending.

As to the content, we knew that Eldred was modernly very fond of trains, and so I thought to center the poem around one of the major responsibilities of the Baronage, advising Their Majesties, in the metaphor of a "track" -- as in "keeping them on track".

The final poem opens with the image of long-worn, mysterious Roman roads which snaked across the British landscape during the time of Eldred's persona, and wild paths through wilderness. These are the ways of unexplained tradition or willful folly. Distinct from these is the "new track" cut by Eldred's voice (as he was the Triton Herald, and voice for Their Majesties for some time), which leads to "wisdom" and is "light pilgrimage", playing on both meanings of light against the "night" of ignorant paths and the heavy burden of leadership.

The "bob" in the poem (the short, two syllable line) is simply "BARON", which Lady Kaaren expertly treated with a luscious capital to call out the significance of title, as I did by singling it out on a line. This "bob" is followed by the "wheel", a short rhyming section which commands Eldred as Baron to advise future royalty and keep them on the true path.

I am also including Lady Ela's translation below, which you can read more about on her website. The difficulty of her task cannot be overstated, and many other translators in the past would have compromised by translating verse between languages into prose. Not Lady Ela: she did such magnificent work to maintain sense and sound!