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Aug 4, 2026 4 min

The Elfin Bough

from Ririro.com - Poetry Hosted by Ririro

"The Elfin Bough" is a narrative poem set in a snow-dusted English wood on Christmas Eve, during the Puritan era when festive celebrations were forbidden. A solemn, hungry boy named Year-of-Jubilee encounters a mysterious and luminous young woman who asks him to pluck a bough of mistletoe from a tall tree. After he obliges, she reveals herself to be no witch — but a spirit of Christmas past, mourning the vanished feasts, music, and laughter of old. The boy is left alone in the fading winter light, quietly daring to wish for Christmas pie. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ririro-com-poetry--6577576/support.

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The Elfin Bough

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Song Against Songs, The by G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) LibriVox LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 recordings of The Song Against Songs by G. K. Chesterton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 16, 2011. Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and weighing around 21 stone (130 kg; 290 lb). His girth gave rise to a famous anecdote. During World War I a lady in London asked why he was not 'out at the Front'; he replied, 'If you go round to the side, you will see that I am.' On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw: "To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England". Shaw retorted, "To look at you, anyone would think you have caused it". P. G. Wodehouse once described a very loud crash as "a sound like Chesterton falling onto a sheet of tin."( Summary from Wikipedia )

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