Penny Wagers

James Hart
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I write narrative poetry that leans more mythopoetic than personal. Also essays about perambulations, coffee's effect on memory and other cool stuff. Come on in. The water's nice, so feel free to take your shoes and socks off. pennywagers.substack.com

  1. 1D AGO

    Fionn mac Cumhaill goes to Loughlin

    Y’know, I wasn’t going to start this. The plan wasn’t to record and put these on Substack; I was just going to share ‘em at in-person venues here and there. But three things have been nagging on me and got me to change my mind. * It would be dishonest, in a way. These stories continue to take up a great deal of my time and attention. I can’t treat this here Substack as some kind of curated persona in which I only share what would scale well; I don’t have the energy for that. This is what I’m into, so this is what I’m sharing. * The difficulty presented a problem. I pride myself on what I’ve been able to track down in terms of old and new recordings of these stories. I’m not half bad at finding pre-modern texts, either. But I was looking past the obvious here: recordings and older texts are hard to track down because there aren’t that many. That’s a bit of a tragedy. But it’s also one I can try to do something about. * I keep thinking about a piece of advice from Gary Snyder, who in turn got his from old myths and fables: never be stingy. So okay, let’s get into it then. Let’s dip our toes into the Fenian Cycle. But let’s do it with some care and consideration, eh? We can do better than CEOs, can’t we? Unlike the fine fiction and historical writing here on Substack, it’s my opinion that these stories aren’t best suited as reading material. In the context of myth, I see books as temporal transports; a kind of train across the centuries. Sure, they’re quite handy for taking a story from the sixth century to our time and place, but it’d be ludicrous to expect them to live on the thing that brought them here. So, oral storytelling it is, and while source material is paramount to what we’re going to be up to, this isn’t going to be recitation. We have some further work to do. Oral storytelling is in a strange place today. There are few venues in which it’s still done, and I have to say, most aren’t too flattering. God bless the librarians who gather the kids around for Story Time at the library, but as important as that is, I think that’s a separate activity. Outside of folk festivals and story swaps, I can only think of a few places in which live, unscripted storytelling is likely to be experienced in our daily routines. You’ll see it sometimes at weddings, but you’re also just as likely to watch the best man reading from note cards. Ever think about why he’s reading from note cards? Because he wants to do his buddy a solid, yet he’s terrified at screwing up. He’s terrified because like the rest of us, he hates what he’d refer to as “public speaking.” Like the rest of us, he doesn’t swap jokes or family stories around the dinner table anymore. He doesn’t shoot the breeze with the guys in the factory because there is no factory and just as likely today, there are no guys; phones and remote work have seen to that. Outside of that wedding, he may never speak in public again. It’s another tragedy that doesn’t have to happen. Everybody can participate in this. On the other hand, there’s another group who practices this sort of thing all the time. They have no inhibitions whatsoever, despite being terrible at it. I’m talking of course about CEOs and, if you’ll allow me the double misnomer, “thought leaders.” They have the benefit of speaking to a captive audience in a literal sense. I once watched a CEO spend twenty minutes explain the plot of Frozen to a group of adults who, unlike the CEO, had kids of their own and could (and did) act out entire scenes of the movie during every morning carpool. He was using his patronizing summary as a metaphor for open and honest communication, and the need for employee feedback. Some of the folks who gave it were subsequently laid off. Management had to restructure, you know how it is. Aside from weddings, retirement parties and CEO absurdist performance art, you also have icebreakers at workshop retreats, unplanned digressions behind the lectern in Business 101, open mic nights and folk festivals. That’s about it. That’s where you’re most likely to encounter oral storytelling today. An ancient technology to bring us together and orient ourselves to the land, our ancestry and each other has been downgraded to begrudged social custom, entertainment or corporate allegory. Now is no time to wait for ideal conditions. We need stories like this now. I’m crazy enough to think that some great things would happen for ourselves and for the stories if we started getting reacquainted again. Myths, fables and folklore shared through a community of oral telling allow you to sit with ideas at a depth that description and mere “talking it out” can’t do. The practice reinforces cultural identity while at the same time keeps it alive in the present. It anchors stories to a community instead of keeping them stuck within a text. And they get us to use our imagination in the service of navigating the world instead of providing mere entertainment. This isn’t an ideal format because you aren’t here in the room with me, but we’re not going to let that stop us. Maybe we’ll pretend that after sunset, we have a fire going in the back yard. We’re circling around the big red glow like we used to at camp, but unlike before, we’re preparing to do something very old, occasionally profound and always terribly good fun. Silver stags and hazel wands The Fenian Cycle is one of four great mythological cycles of Ireland. The other three are the Invasion Tales, the Ulster Cycle and the Cycle of Kings. The Fenian Cycle is about Fionn mac Cumhaill and his captaincy of the Fianna, the fighting men of Ireland. The events trace as far back as the third century and unlike the Ulster Cycle, the stories of Fionn have always been more vernacular than that of Cú Chulainn. And unlike Greek mythology, Fenian stories have a much more tangled timeline to them. They’re tied to their place, but the stories were shared and preserved by different tellers and communities, never fully consolidating into anything resembling an official canon. Each town, region or area had their own versions. Fionn wasn’t a king as we might understand it. He led his group of warrior-hunter volunteers who’d hunt, move camp to follow the seasons, and work as needed in service to Conn the Hundred Fighter, the high king of Ireland. Joining the Fianna was no easy business. You had to be able to leap over a branch as tall as your forehead and pass under one as low as your knee—without breaking your stride. You had to know the twelve books of poetry. They’d stick you waist-deep in a pit, and you had to be able to defend yourself against nine warriors with only a shield and a hazel staff. The deer and the wolf were both symbols they would self-apply. And once you were in, buddy, you were in. Your previous status outside in the broader world was put on hold for awhile. None of the baggage or obligation you brought with you mattered; you had to show who you were through your skills and conduct. Fionn’s rules were very clear. Among other requirements, the Fianna were expected at all times to defend women. Protect children. Shield poets and non-combatants. Share and be always generous, especially to those who have less. And never, ever refuse anyone hospitality. (Not even wily granddaughters of the Gentry.) Make no mistake: they’re strange, these stories. There’s no Ragnarok to work against, no Mount Olympus calling the shots, no chasing of the Grail. They were some of Yeats’s all-time favorite tales, and I can understand why. He was inclined to put it this way: “Whatever they do, whether they listen to the harp or follow an enchanter over-sea, they do for the sake of joy, their joy in one another, or their joy in pride and movement; and even their battles are fought more because of their delight in a good fighter than because of any gain that is in victory. They live always as if they were playing a game; and so far as they have any deliberate purpose at all, it is that they may become great gentlemen and be worthy of the songs of poets.” It’s part of the circular and wheeling nature of the Fenian Cycle that each story relates to all of the others, so the more we go through these, the clearer their picture is going to be. Let’s see how far we get, eh? We’ll start right in the middle of things. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    21 min

  2. FEB 16

    Lacing Back Up

    My dad started running just a few years before I did. Living 45 miles away from his job at the planetarium, he was inclined to wake up around 7 o’clock to get me and him out the door by 8. But then he started waking up a little earlier. I heard the front door slam around 6:15, but after that I didn’t hear the snowblower like I thought I would. Okay, so if it wasn’t the snow, what was he doing out there? He’d go out every day, earlier and earlier. It was just a couple miles at first. Then he started eating more, and at weird times of the day. Still earlier he’d go out. He started going to sleep at 6:30 so he could wake up in time. By the time he shattered his foot, he was running 17 miles on the daily. Recovery took over a year. After that, he knew he had to take it easy. He still ran but reined it in to a modest 11 miles before breakfast. I started running because my friends abducted me. I mean literally. Jack and Jacob drove up to my house, pulled me into the car and said, “we’re all going to run Cross Country this year. We’ve got your shoes.” This might have been a bigger deal than may be obvious. There were team banners hanging inside our school’s gymnasium like any high school’s, but ours weren’t football banners; they were for Cross Country. We had the hardest course in the entire state, and we won championships every year. We never checked the posted times to see if we got first, because of course we did. We checked to see how many other divisions we would have won, too, had they let us compete in them. Cross Country was a big deal. I never contributed too much myself. My first 5k time was an abysmal 29 minutes. By the end of the season, I was able to shave it down to a fairly respectable 18. I didn’t run in college, nor anytime afterward, but speaking of times, I hit my first serious relationship crisis right on schedule in my mid-20s. That’s when I picked up my running shoes again. I went out just like my dad did—only nights, not mornings. (I’m more of a third shift runner; I seldom did dawn patrol.) I went out in 100-degree heat. I went out in February, when the entire state was sealed in icy blister-wrap. I’ve seen rain slow its descent and felt the stick under my feet as it turned into snow. Then, just like the Tom Hanks movie, I just stopped one day. I was halfway through a run and decided to walk home. I wanted to continue, but I didn’t understand what my fuel was. Anger, frustration and sadness sure got the boiler going, but of course it couldn’t last. When it wasn’t there anymore, it was difficult to motivate myself. I never touched my shoes again until around 2020. That lasted for about two years, and then once again I tucked them back into the closet. I find myself running again now. I couldn’t tell you why, it just seemed like a good idea. I don’t time my runs, don’t map them out and I’m not into wearables. I have no idea how fast or far I go, but I’m gone for about two hours if that tells you anything. I’m not burning anything off this time, but I do meet up with a few enemies, friends and advisors. Worry is usually the first one to stop by, the eager b*****d. Hey, James, did you see the news today? Please tell me you did. If not, I’m more than happy to catch you up! There’s no point in running away from him; he always knows where to find me. So, I’m polite. I hear him out, and I wait for him to have nothing new to say. Usually up next is Guilt and Grief. Buncha downright nostalgic softies, those two. They’re downright sentimental. Hey, James, remember your drinking days? Remember how terribly you handled your first couple of relationships? Lost in a sea of your own inexperience is how I like to explain it to people! Hey, that’s nothing, my man here is spectacular at disappointing his parents. Remember his wedding? You can’t outrun Guilt or Grief, either, so I’ve worked out a deal with them. I don’t like it when they come in and scuff up the carpet with my muddy memories, so they can hang out with me as much as they like while I’m on a run. I stick with it. Keep running, keep breathing, keep the pace. Those two eventually drift away, too, once they’ve had their say. Then, if I’m lucky and circumstances allow it, some very different visitors might begin to show up. “Hey, Tristan. What a mess of things I’ve made in the past. My experiences sure don’t measure up to yours, do they?” Look more closely. See that not all adventures mature well. He’s a great sport at being patient with me. But look who else we have here, Fionn’s here on the trail, too! Think you’d make the Fianna, running like this? “I don’t know, but braid my hair, son of Cumhaill, and let’s see if any of you can catch me.” Well, if it’s a race, then you’ve got to run against Caoilte. “Caoilte mac Rónáin! What are you doing here? What’s with the wet feet?” Well, it’s soggy business, running across the ocean. “Tell me about the sand, Caoilte.” No, I’m not telling you about the sand, you’ve heard that a hundred— “C’mon, it’s a great story.” Okay, okay, so Conn had a few of us Fianna up at Tara, along with some of his own people. He brought us together and wanted to know how long it’d take each of us to fill a skin bag with sand from every shore of Ireland. He asked one of his men— “And he said it’d take him—“ Hey, look, you want to hear this or not? He said it’d take him about a month. He turned to Sciathbreac of the Speckled Shield and he said there’s not a single fighting man in all the Fianna who couldn’t do it in under a week. Conn turned to me, and I held up my sock. “Why’d you hold up your sock, Caoilte?” Well, I told Conn, ‘I got the sand while you all were talkin’. But you didn’t give me a skin bag, so I had to improvise.’ Every now and then, when I’m clearest, I can also hear from the Still, Small Voice. There’s often so much noise in my head that it drowns out such transmissions, but running sometimes helps. Often times I’m directed toward a reminder I think should be tattooed on my forehead: don’t judge and stop worrying so much. So, I try my best not to. I try to focus on my breathing, on my stride and I let my visitors drift in and out as they may. They talk, and I patiently hear them out. Just as well I do. It’s hard to talk while you’re running. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  3. FEB 9

    The State of Middle Earth

    I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too. I’m going out to fetch the little calfThat’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,It totters when she licks it with her tongue.I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too. —Robert Frost, “The Pasture” The Easterlings are passing through the wallThe Land of Golden Domes is falling inThe Cradle of the East is soon to fallBy mutual destruction from within. The Dragon, too, may open up its doorsAnd come to claim Formosa as a prizeThe Black Foe creeps across our quiet shoresRevenge the growing shimmer in its eyes. The Western world is unprepared to actWhen wraiths and balrogs, thought to be their guides,Reward offense while kindness is attackedAnd peace becomes an outrage that divides. We stand to join a darkness seldom knownIf Angband’s king is given back his throne. This poem isn’t really about Middle Earth. And to some degree, neither is Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s praised for his world-building, but I don’t think he’d place that much stock in the term himself. He’d also scoff at placing his story within the context of the 20th century’s post-war years. During Martin Shaw’s talk at the Beatrice Institute this past Saturday, there was a question as to whether Lord of the Rings was itself a myth. I’m with Martin in suggesting that as wonderful as the stories are, they’re more mythic than myth itself. A distinction I’d bet Tolkien would be fine with. The Professor was very explicit about his intention not to write an allegory. But neither was he out to build a magic system or write a myth for his time and place. He was trying to get an audience who recently turned its back on the mythopoetic in favor of modernity to perceive the former again. “Recovery,” he said in On Fairy Stories, “is a regaining … though I might venture to say, ‘seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them.’” We need to “clean our windows,” he says, “so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—of possessiveness.” There’s a big difference between writing lore for a pasture spring, using a pasture spring as a metaphor for English reconstruction, and inviting you to witness the thing for yourself. If The Professor would allow me this slight suggestion, I would put it as seeing vividly, not just clearly. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    3 min

  4. FEB 2

    Ice Giants and the Missing Half

    This week’s story is “The Ice Giants,” recorded by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. This cold snap is really something else, man, I’m telling you. Cailleach Beara ever tightens her icy grip on the long-shadowed land. I ventured out for a bit of social severance in the midst of this icy nonsense, but I didn’t stay out for long. The Old Hag plastered the forest in rimy sheets of cellophane; no surface was spared for miles. Walking down the Old Valley Trail, I saw hoof marks made before the ice was laid—along with depressions near the unsteady sections adjacent to the fallen trees. The frozen concavities marked where the deer lost their footing and collapsed on the ice. I’m not even half as graceful as any woodland animal, so if they were slipping and sliding on the ice, how much chance did I have to stay upright? It turns out I had none at all. I didn’t so much slip and fall as I had the world violently wrenched away from me on more than a handful of occasions. I slammed onto the ice, cutting up my hand and doing a number on my legs. There was just nothing for it, I couldn’t get any handle on the ice without crampons. So, I slid down the hillsides with no way to steer my descent, the palm part of my gloves cut to ribbons. I did spend some time at the inlet and enjoyed the isolation and the company of birds, but I didn’t stay long. On my way back, I had to use branches to smash the ice just enough to give my feet somewhere to be while I chipped away at making stairs out of the valley. It was just far too dangerous to stay out there. Sometimes, warm blankets and fireside activities are not just the most but the only sensible thing. Sitting at home is when I noticed it, though. A missing half. I wondered if I might be able to show it to you, too. When we’re snowed in like this, my wife and I will often watch a movie or a TV show. (Currently, we’re rewatching Northern Exposure.) We’ll also read or listen to a podcast. My daughter’s best friend is in a dance group, and she’s often talking about joining. My wife suggested maybe we get her piano lessons, too, like she had done. Okay then. Let’s start with those piano lessons and dance group. Despite the difference in activity, they’re run pretty much the same. The kids practice the sheet music or the choreography to such a level that they can then put on a recital. At that recital, they play their music or dance their dances in the way their teacher taught them, with parents looking on from the gymnasium wall, or the folded chairs provided by the venue. That’s it, that’s what we think “music lessons” are. That’s what “learning dance” is. Except it isn’t always. When kids learn music, they could learn to read sheet music and play “hot cross buns” by rote, or they could hang out with grandpa and his banjo. Grandpa might give ‘em some spoons or a sack of marbles and say, “alright, boys and girls, follow me.” First they learn the beat, then simple rhythms, then in a few months, maybe they’ll take on a string instrument themselves. When they do, they learn an entirely different musical ethos than that of piano recitals. They learn that songs need their interpretation, their voice, and their unique way of laying down the melody. They learn that it’s not only alright but expected to participate in the lyrics, not just regurgitate them. That part of the etiquette of playing a song is to tell people it was grandpa who first taught it to you. As for dance, you can join a dance group, sure, and learn specific choreography to compete against other groups at competitions. Or you could hit up the Friday night dance in town and learn to improvise with a partner. Practice getting your steps in sync with the band—because of course there’s a live band—and so when they change it up, you’re ready to follow them and the caller. There are no competitions there, only communities whose only goal is participation, social inclusion and a knee-slappin’ good time. It’s an ethos that we’ve lost in lieu of something else. For lack of better terminology, let’s call it a “folk” versus “commercial” approach to art and expression. As a rough litmus, here’s how I see them in contrast: Folk is mutable. Commercial is fixed. Folk music, storytelling and dance are different with each performance. Folk variation is expected and valued. Nothing commercial ever changes; in fact, it’s not supposed to. There’s one true correct version, and repetition and consistency are the expectation. Folk is learned in the moment, from person to person. Commercial is learned asynchronously through products. You learn one by hanging out and following grandpa on his banjo. You learn the other by songbooks and taking quizzes on music theory. Folk is participatory. Commercial is presentational. You’re supposed to get up and dance at a town dance. You’re supposed to stay quiet, sit along the edges of the gymnasium and record your kids on your phone at a dance competition. Folk serves a social function. Commercial serves consumption. Folk dances, stories and songs exist to bring people together in the moment. Movies, books and albums are treated by artists, publishers and consumers as scalable commodities. Folk is process-driven. Commercial is product-driven. A successful folk song has everyone participating. A successful commercial song goes viral and sells copies. It’s at this point that I should make it clear that I’m not judging commercial art. These two have helped each other throughout the past several centuries, and thank goodness for that. It’s precisely because of the recorded nature of books that many oral traditions have even survived. And I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you that I don’t like novels, movies or Pink Floyd. This isn’t some high horse thing. There is an issue, though, in how lopsided these two have become. Going back to my family’s stay-at-home activities, how many of those are folk versus commercial endeavors? How many are yours? And look, there are no easy answers to difficult problems. But I do think it’s more than coincidence that adult loneliness, isolation and depression have gone up as town dances, family music-making and oral storytelling have all gone down in participation. This loss is felt on Substack, too. I’ve seen a number of writers lament the fact that their list isn’t scaling, that monetization isn’t going the way they were hoping and that the platform doesn’t incentivize certain genres. Those are indeed frustrating, and the stats the platform pushes in front of us only encourage those kinds of reactions. But there is that other side of things, isn’t there? Just because it’s not on your dashboard doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I hit a pretty heavy depression nearing the end of my master’s program. I saw academia or literary presses as my only way forward with it. So, naturally I thought I was frustrated with the masses for turning their backs on poetry. But of course, that wasn’t truly the case. More accurately, poetry enjoyed a brief era of commercial relevance—to its detriment. Financial incentives bring stakeholders, after all, and stakeholders, committees. But poetry and storytelling are very old things. Older than books old. Older than alphabets old. Most of their history lies outside the concept of everything we take for granted. The kids would call this a hot take, so prepare yourself, but I believe it’s to the health of poetry and storytelling that they are scarce among the land of the commercial. It’s good they don’t scale. All the better, so that their communal rewards may continue unexploited. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    14 min

  5. JAN 26

    The Wrath of Winter

    Take care you find it's not inside the house where winter hits hardest. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    3 min

  6. JAN 19

    Black Aggie

    Did you know that Grief has a twin? Around here, she does. Some have even sat in her lap. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min

  7. JAN 12

    The Hunter’s Bowl

    All local histories contain curiosities—even when absence tells most of the story. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    5 min

  8. JAN 5

    My Voyage with Bran

    Myths will sometimes walk with you if you invite them along. And sometimes they'll keep pace for reasons of their own. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min
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About

I write narrative poetry that leans more mythopoetic than personal. Also essays about perambulations, coffee's effect on memory and other cool stuff. Come on in. The water's nice, so feel free to take your shoes and socks off. pennywagers.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    James Hart
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    88
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © James Hart
  • Show Website
    Penny Wagers