Skelton: Ale Wiues Downe
This jacket design from A Selection of Poems by John Skelton contains a contemporary woodcut depicting Skelton’s famous character, Elenor Rumming the alewife. Apparently, Skelton wasn’t very fond of Elenor, for an ‘alewife’ is a foul smelling and awful looking fish that is native to the Atlantic and is listed on most invasive species lists. I believe at the time (1523), John Skelton was king of the poetry slam. Here is a sample form ‘The Tunning of Elenor Rumming‘:

Her eyen gowndy
Are full unsowndy,
For they are blered;
And she gray hered;
Jawed lyke a jetty;
A man would have pytty
To se how she is gumbed,
Fyngered and thumbed,
Gently joynted,
Gresed and annoynted
Up to the knockles;
The bones of her huckels
Lyke as they were with buckels
Togyther made fast:
Her youth is farre past:
Foted lyke a plane,
Legged lyke a crane;
And yet she wyll jet,
Lyke a jollyvet,
In her furred flocket,
And gray russet rocket,
With symper the cocket.

I myself am trying to work in some of these quotes of John Skelton’s into my daily language. I especially like, “There is nothynge that more dyspleaseth God, Than from theyr children to spare the rod.” Which roughly translates to ‘God wants you to beat your kids silly with a very big stick’.

All of this is good research for a book I’m working on called: “The Skeltons: A Heritage Soaked in the Ale of Savagery”.

I thought I would also include here a passage from Robert Graves‘s toast to John Skelton:

What could be dafter
Than John Skelton’s laughter?

What sound more tenderly
Than his pretty poetry?

So where to rank old Skelton?
He was no monstrous Milton,
Nor wrote no “Paradise Lost,”

So wondered at by most,

Phrased so disdainfully,

Composed so painfully.

He struck what Milton missed,

Milling an English grist

With homely turn and twist.

He was English through and through,

Not Greek, nor French, nor Jew,

Also, from a great article entitled John Skelton – Godfather of Rap, by Robert Skelton, we learn that Skelton gave us the phrases: “I Smell a Rat”, “By hook or by crook” and my all time favorite, “In spite of his teeth.” Robert also goes on to compare some of Skelton’s poetic stanzas with the some of the best hip hop moguls. Robert proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Beastie Boys sample all their good material from the Skeltons. Check this quote from Robert’s article:

Listen to these lines from his poem To Mistress Margaret Hussey:

Erst that ye can find

So courteous, so kind,

Of merry Margaret, as midsummer flower,

Gentle as falcon or hawk of the tower.

Whereas 500 years later the Beastie Boys tell us:

We’re giving you soul power

I like it sweet and sour

When it comes to rhymes and beat designs

I’m at the control tower