Fens

Poem 941 – Hereward Brings Turfrieda Home (The Ballad of the Wake cont.)

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So now renowned in far Flanders
Across the Narrow Seas, 1
He took Turfrieda in his embrace,
With arms now proven in strength and grace,
Declaring ‘No more should we be displaced,
Let’s live as family!’

We’ve been apart for far too long,
Let’s leave and forge a home,
Back in the Fens, my Father’s land,
Let’s up at once and go!

And so he gathered up his men
With Siwards Red and White,
The chaplain Hugo Britannious,
With prayer and sword a genius,
His brother too, one Withardus,
A knight of valour and might.

And so they sailed across the Seas,
Past France, back home again,
Where Old Man Heron patient stood,
And pike and perch swam in the brook,
And eels swam past the willow wood,
Back to his Mother Fen.

After sharing a few verses with my father yesterday, I’m feeling inspired to press on with this ballad, and determined to intertwine the tale of Hereward with the character of our shared fenland home.
(14.07.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Image public domain

  1. The Anglo Saxon Name for the English Channel ↩︎

Poem 939 – Appeasing Mother Fen (The Ballad of the Wake cont.)

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Old Mother Fen this is your tale
And so we greet you first,
We toss a sword into the wet,
Acknowledging your primal threat,
A humble token of respect
With which to slake your thirst.

Our sword is new and freshly forged
And never drawn in anger,
It’s made for you at great expense,
A blade that’s offered like incense,
To calm your hunger, make you content,
Receive us in your land.

And now our duty is performed
Our narrative can start,
With introductions of our cast,
A look back to a violent past,
To welcome Hereward at last,
To the tale of which he’s part.

Thinking about the setting off this ballad, I found myself remembering Flag Fen in Peterborough and the sword found there which formed some sort of offering. That significantly predates our tale, but it somehow felt appropriate to appropriate it for the start of my ballad, a memory echoed in Arthurian Legend now applied to Hereward, another resistance fighter.
(12.07.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Maria Miguel Cardeiro on Unsplash

Poem 924 – The Lantern Men (Ballad of the Wake cont.)

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Beware the marsh the black crow cries,
Beware the treacherous mire,
Beware deceptive flickering lights,
That tempt and tease us from our stride,
The cunning of these devious guides,
That wickedly conspire.

Beware the evil lantern men,
The haunters of the fen,
That flicker with the barking dog,
That howls within the cloaking fog,
The phantom hound, the grim Black Shuck,
Enticing us to our death.

A bit brain dulled by the heat and the days events, so here’s a couple of verses that may or may not feature in the Ballad of the Wake.
(26.06.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Fabio Verhorstert on Unsplash

Poem 918 – The Fen (Ballad of the Wake)

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Dense clouds of flighty midges muster,
Somewhere a hidden croak,
A swish of grass in gentle breeze,
The honking of the passing geese,
And weeping of the willow’s leaves,
A hint of distant smoke.

A heavy heat lies on the Fen,
A dark rich smell of earth,
Amongst the reeds the water flows,
In currents, eddies, that do not show,
Hidden by irises that golden grow,
She knows not fame or worth.

Old man heron might safely stand
The eel may safely swim
But a stranger standing unawares
Lost in thought or saying prayers
May swiftly sink with no fanfare
And be dragged deep within.

Once in her arms there’s no escape,
She is a jealous wife,
She’ll hold you close in her embrace,
And pull you down without a trace,
Eternally before her face,
A watery afterlife.

I thought I’d step aside from the main narrative today and try some stanzas describing the Fen scenery. If I can, I’d like the Fen to become almost a character in the ballad, something I haven’t developed at all yet.
(20.06.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Wicken Lode1.JPG. (2026, April 26). Wikimedia Commons.

Poem 667 – Eternal Horizons

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Back to the flat country
The land of black peat soil,
eternal horizons and hanging
mist. The womb that bore me.
Of tumbling buildings and ditches.
Of endless skies that leave us
falling into the view.
A dreamscape that still haunts me.

Returned to the Cambridgeshire fens today.
(12.10.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo public domain by Dr Border at English Wikipedia

Poem 167 – The Futility of the Fenland Cyclist

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‘It’s just a short climb,’ they said,
‘A little rise, a quick kick.
It’s nothing that will trouble you.’
But they forgot I grew up in
The Fens; a horizontal line
Of land that’s paper thin, all sky.
To me it was Mount Everest.
I set off from my base camp with
Adventure in my heart, but soon
I needed oxygen and Sherpas.
The final straw? A lycra clad
Illusion, laughing as it passed…

I’m currently training to ride the London-Essex 100 in May for Parkinson’s UK. Encountering slopes, my legs reminded me of a fleeting encounter just outside Sidmouth when I was on my first major ride… (Ps. If you want to sponsor me you can do so here: https://events.parkinsons.org.uk/fundraisers/benquant)
(07.02.23)

© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Sebastian Graser on Unsplash

Poem 81 – The Freedom of Flatness

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Some say these dark drained lands are empty, dull,
Vast, boring landscapes stripped of growth except
Unnatural poplar lines which interrupt
The fields proudly, a giant picket fence

The rest is flat, a murky flat, devoid
That stretches on for miles and miles and miles
Even its drains seem still and slowly flow
Found wanting under gravity’s strong trial

Depressing, black the peat which forms this ground
Can ground the unfamiliar down and bring them low
Our vision though is not confined like others
By contours, trees or other upward growth

Cast off the blinkers raise your eyes and see
Forget the pull of earth’s deep prejudice
Don’t be constrained to two dimensions only
Lift up your weary eyes find evidence

This land makes space for that which downwards fills
The mist which hangs in early morning dim
Fen blows that sharply tear across the flats
Unfettered sky set free to have its fun

The clouds can play and nighttime stars shine bright
And awesome Moon around the Lantern* glow
This land’s not bare but full and overflowing
This canvas primed for heavens’ masterstrokes

* The octagonal tower which rises from Ely Cathedral, which dominates the skyline of the Cambridgeshire Fens.

I grew up in the Cambridgeshire Fens, a vast stretch of drained peat devoted mainly to farming. It’s a stark landscape; absent are the usual features gloried in by lovers of the countryside. Once you learn how to see it, though, it has its own majestic beauty which lingers in the memory.
(29.01.22)

© Ben Quant 2022