All hints are in the comments!

Thursday, July 16, 2020

July 16, 2020

|| || goatee, thatch, adage, surly, glad to hear.
Image from the Internet.

The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.

16 comments:

Ol' Man Keith said...


'Tis an adage of ancient & proven lore
That the wages of a surly peasant
Will surely cost you five times more
Than those of a chap who's pleasant.

And if you need to thatch your roof,
Never hire a goateed serf.
For it's of a sad, long-standing proof
He'll claim your house as his turf.

If you'd call, "Nay,"
The fairies say:
Do not mock this wisdom of old!
'Tis bad to jeer ...what WE've told.
~ OMK

Ol' Man Keith said...

Er... 'Tis mortally bad to jeer--what WE've told.

Misty said...

Grandpa gets his Comeuppance

Her grandpa had an ADAGE
As stupid as boiled cabbage.
In a tone that was quite SURLY
He derided her hair so curly,
And ordered her to make tea.
Instead she yanked his GOATEE
And threatened his face to scratch
Until it resembled a THATCH.

Then he smiled and said, "My dear,
What pluck! I'm GLAD TO HEAR!





Wilbur Charles said...

Wow, two superb efforts. I'm humbled. Will Sandy follow with one of her chef d'oeuvres?

I'd better get rhyming. Front de Boeuf* can't be kept waiting

WC

* In his intro Scott mentions that FdB actually is taken from a real person. I'll try to LIU

Sandyanon said...

No, Sandy won't follow. As I said before, I generally avoid poetry; stultifying prose is much more my style. I'm happy to read the products of other people's creativity.

The jumble was pretty easy today. Once the clues gave me all the letters, the solution jumped right out at me. Pretty clever.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Excellent, Misty! ~ Another grand verse from our self-declared non-poet!
Your humorous couplets integrate all the Jumble clues smoothly AND offer up the solution as well.
I merely thought to fill the gap, but Owen has inspired more of us than we knew!

Wilbur ~ Hmm. You're the French expert.
Isn't Front de Boeuf a "side of beef"?
~ OMK

Ol' Man Keith said...

OIC
Google translates it as "Ox head."
No clue yet as to who the historical figure was that Scott had in mind.
Maybe a compilation of all the nasty Normans?
~ OMK

Wilbur Charles said...

OMK, for my literal translation see the following

An adage of those times: "Lovely damsels, you'd best veil".
For lusty, lawless knights would covet and then assail
Said virgin ladies. And DeBracy, he of the fancy goatee
And Sir Brian who defiled the Templar vow of chastity

Thought Rebecca and Rowena should be glad to hear
Of the prowess of these noble knights who'd come to bear
Them off to the entrenched Castle of the Face of Beef
For that gross and surly scourge was always lief

To aid and abet an enterprise that sated his lust for gold.
And there in the train of captives was none other than the Jew.
There was the prize for the greedy De Boeuf if truth be told.
There'd been a strain amongst the two knights until a view

Of the rapture of Rebecca entranced the Templar Knight.
No thought was given of the Saxons. Let them return
Again to their thatched huts and miserable bairns.
But the captives must pay ransom before they'd see the light.

WC

Ol' Man Keith said...

BRAVO, Wilbur!
A solid piece of work, meeting all the challenges & flying through...
And more WooHoos to Misty! Woo! WooHoo!!

Somehow, though,
I get the impression we're all dancing bears, with those little conical caps.
Or jugglers, adding some plates or extra balls in each of our vaudeville laps.
~ OMK

Misty said...

Thank you for the kind words, Wilbur and Ol'Man Keith--but much more important, thank you for your wonderful poetry! You make our day today! And Sandyanon, thank you for keeping us elegantly down to earth and making kind regular comments stand out as special. Now we just need to hear from our Owen.

Wilbur Charles said...

I should have mentioned that I was combining both Wednesday and Thursday j-words and solutions.

Sandyanon said...

Everyone is prolific today except Owen! Owen, can you check in at all???

Ol' Man Keith said...

The more we call for him,
The more I see Owen in you & me.
Might this not be his plan all along,
To bring out the art in 'we three'?
Or four,
Counting prose in the score?

Wilbur Charles said...

I skipped over the action in the woods on the way to Rotherwood. Disguised as outlaws de Bracy and Sir Brian waylaid Cedric. He'd already allowed Isaac to join them. They brought the captives to Front de Boeuf's castle.

WC

Sandyanon said...

I have more or less mutated into an onlooker rather than a participant, but know that I'm a very appreciative onlooker.

Misty said...

You're also a very appreciated onlooker, Sandy. I know everyone would agree with that.