Wondrous Words
By the end of the week their hands are hardened and their backs stiffened like steel. Piers, who all week is also made to carry every barrelful of debris to the dump, is ruddy like a damson.
Damson
The damson or damson plum, also archaically called the "damascene" is an edible drupaceous fruit, a subspecies of the plum tree. Varieties of insititia are found across Europe, but the name "damson" is derived from and most commonly applied to forms which are native to Ireland and Great Britain. Damsons are relatively small plum-like fruit with...Wikipedia"He moves closer to the western end of the terrace, passing the unmistakable aldermen of the guilds and their equally gilded wives all fawning and flirting behind the safety of silk, velvet and sequinned masks.The bishop is intentionally unmistakable too -the ornate crimson dalmatic; the pelican-beaked mask. I suppose the pelican motif will be lost on our sovereign, he thinks; too busy plucking the heart out of the monasteries....."
Dalmatic
: a wide-sleeved overgarment with slit sides worn by a deacon or prelate
2
: a robe worn by a British sovereign at his or her coronation
Galliard
The galliard (gaillarde in French; gagliarda in Italian) was a form of Renaissance dance and music popular all over Europe in the 16th century. It is mentioned in dance manuals from England, France, Spain, Germany and Italy among others.
"The musicians strike up a galliard to which the king and his party respond with good humour, taking the floor with all decorum and summoning the second table to join them."
Dance form
As a dance, the galliard was definitely not one to be improvised. It had dancers combining patterns of steps which occupy one or more measures of music. In one measure, a galliard typically has five steps; in French such a basic step is called a cinq pas and in Italy, cinque passi.
Comments
I, too, love the plum pics. All of your words are interesting this week.