Book Review: This Rich and Wondrous Earth

This Rich and Wondrous Earth, by Mrs. Linda Burklin, is an excellent and well-written book telling about her childhood growing up in central Africa at a boarding school for missionary children.  Mrs. Burklin clearly and in a manner easy to read tells about her adventures and education there. She conveys her ideas and experiences clearly. This book is very enthralling! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and especially her account of their half-term amusements. During their time at the river, they would select shady areas to build “half-term houses” in, because at half-term they were allowed to spend the Rest Hour in those “houses” with the others who helped build it. Groups of girls would select a spot and build the half-term house together. Much time was passed by discussing what to furnish the house with!  

I really suggest that you read this book.

Bailie 

A Poem about part of the Simarillion

One day I was reading the Simarillion and I decided to write a poem about the section where it describes how Arda (Earth) was created. So here it is:

When all was dark and empty still,

Before the world was made or formed;

Ilúvatar did create all

The Ainur, out of the great Flame.

They sang, and learnéd many things

That Eru taught to them himself,

The Great Creator of all things.

Ilúvatar calléd them to sing

And he declared a mighty theme

More great than any made before.

A graceful chord was forméd then,

Each sang of what he thought, adorning

The base Motif with varied strains,  

All in accordance with the Theme.

But Melkor brought into the song

A new theme which was strange, discordant; 

He sought more power for himself

And discord quickly rose about him;

So many then did silent fall,

And sang they then no more that day;

With him some joinéd his theme singing

Until a storm began to rage

And neither then did mastery gain.

Arose with lifted hand Eru;

New theme began amidst the storm,

Both like and unlike to the old;

But Melkor’s theme was louder still;

Ilúvatar grew stern of face.

Then did he rise again, this time

His other hand uplifted high.

This theme did seem full soft and sweet,

But yet it still could not be quenched;

It grew in pow’r and wisdom great. 

Full beautiful yet blended with

A sorrow that could not be measured,

From which the beauty chiefly came.

Now Melkor’s theme had now achieved

A unity, still it vain and clamorous was;

It seeméd like to many trumpets braying

Upon a few notes endlessly.

But yet it seemed the most triumphant notes

Were taken by the other, and

Then woven in, and made its own.

Then Eru rose, both hands upraised;

A piercing chord and all was still.

He spoke to all and said to them

That he would later bring these things

That they had sung and show them forth,

To show Ilúvatar was he.

And told he Melkor to recall

From he, Ilúvatar, sprung all

Of what was ever made.  

Then Melkor shaméd grew;

And from this shame great anger sprung

Secret, fierce, and strong.

Ilúvatar went forth arrayed

In splendor very great;  

And showed Ainur a vision grand.

Behold your Music! he declared.    

He gave them sight to put with sound.

Thus he made Arda at the start. 

Bell 

Why The Constitution is Important

The Constitution was created by the Founding Fathers. Why? Because they were looking for liberty. Liberty, not Democracy. The people who started the French Revolution were looking for Democracy. They wanted power. The Founding Fathers wanted freedom. They knew what human nature is and they came up with this system of checks and balances to combat it.

People want power. People like power. There is something satisfying about showing another person that “I’m better than you are.” We like to be the person in charge, the top dog, all those things. But people can’t be trusted with power. Once we have some, we want more.

The Constitution is not a charter, granting us the rights mentioned inside. It protects these rights, but it does not grant them. These rights are part of our birthright. They cannot be changed, modified, or removed by anyone. This is very important! The Constitution is based on old British Common Law, which in turn is based on the two fundamental principles: Do all you have agreed to do, and Do not encroach on other persons or their property. All major religions and philosophies support those two principles.

Humans have a sense of right and wrong. Children know when something is fair: they know that it is not right to take all the toys, or more of the toys, instead of sharing them equally. This is not something that we learn from books or movies, it is part of us. We are born with it. 

We have moved into a law system where what is right and wrong is based on political law. Political law is the law that the current government has laid down. With this system, what is right or wrong can change every time the government changes hands. You cannot predict what is right or wrong under political law, because it is always changing. There is no stability. A country cannot do well under political law because the law is different with each new government.

Decisions are no longer made according to whether they are right or wrong, but they are made according to the whim of the people. Since this whim changes all the time, so do the laws. This makes it very much like trying to play a game of baseball while the audience is voting on changing the rules every few minutes. It is very difficult to know what to invest in when the rules are changing so often. Under the Constitution, politicians cannot change the law whenever they want. It is based on the two fundamental principles and not on the whims of the people.

 This is why the Constitution is important. 

-Bell

As You Like It--Act 1, Scene 3

Celia is teasing Rosalind about Orlando when the Duke comes in and orders Rosalind to leave on pain of death. She was astonished, but there was no choice but to obey. Celia decided to go with her, though her father forbid her to follow Rosalind. They decided that Rosalind, the taller one, would dress as a man and take the name of Ganymede, while Celia would dress as a poor girl under the name of Aliena.

Here the scene ends.
More soon,
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As You Like It---Act 1, Scene 2

Rosalind is sad because her father has been deposed of his dukedom and sent away. She is still at court with Cecilia, the daughter of the present duke. They are watching the wrestling, and they are very surprised when they see Orlando come to wrestle Charles. Everyone tries to persuade Orlando against wrestling, but he insists and wins. Rosalind has fallen in love with him, and Orlando with her.

The scene ends here.
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Bell 

As You Like It---Act 1, Scene 1

Orlando is not happy. His oldest brother, Oliver, is supposed to be taking care of him and Jaques but is only sending Jaques to school and is keeping all but food and clothing from Orlando. Orlando is rightly angry at this treatment and faces his brother. Oliver won't agree, and is very rude to him.
Oliver is visited by the Duke's champion wrestler, with the news that Orlando is going to try to beat him in the next contest with a disguise. Oliver is pleased, because he wants to kill Orlando, the youngest of the three brothers, but he hides this from Charles and pretends that he has Orlando's good at heart but that Orlando won't listen to his pleas to not go and try his strength.

Here the scene ends.
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In Freedom's Cause

Archie captured the castle with little resistance. Douglas captured another castle which made Randolph anxious to capture one as well. Archie and Randolph also bagged one by climbing a wall that was supposedly impossible to climb. (This was repeated many years later by the British to capture a French castle.)
Now almost all of the castles were in the hands of the Scottish. England was stricken by civil war, and her king was rather bad at the time. Finally Edward the 2nd decided to crush Scotland once and for all. He sent a huge army to invade Scotland. They met at a place by Bannock's burn, hence the name Bannockburn for this battle. Bruce formed his men in ranks four deep, so that they were all engaged at once. The English had too many men to all fight at once, so they were unable to use their strength to the best advantage. The English archers weren't able to shoot or they would hit more of their own men than the Scottish. They tried what had proved disastrous to the Scottish before: going around their flank and shooting from at their side. This time, however, the Scottish cavalry were not commanded by traitors. They chased the archers off and the Scottish archers took the field.

The Scottish won the Battle of Bannockburn.
End of Book
Bell

In Freedom's Cause

Archie was now free. He was very glad that he had chosen Mary Kerr as his wife. She was a true Scotchwoman and had now saved him several times.
The fighting continued, and the resistance of the Scotch was still strong. They captured more and more castles, with just mere handfuls of men. Some determined men who were not even in Bruce's army captured a castle by surprise.
Archie set out to capture a castle that was very difficult to take by surprise. The drawbridge was only lowered twice a day and then it was carefully watched. Archie decided to dress some of his men as fishermen, arrange with the villagers to hide the rest, and pretend to be selling fish because he had been driven into the harbor by the storm.
The chapter ends before he puts his plan into action.

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Bell

Brendan Voyage

They were close to land now, and out of the ice. The Newfoundlands were surrounded by fog, so Brendan was 30 miles off of where she was estimated to be. The ship that met with them found Brendan quite by chance. Brendan was almost to her final port!

At 8:00pm, June 26th, Brendan landed in the New World, at Peckford Island, Newfoundland.
She had proved that it was possible to sail across the ocean in a leather boat.

END OF BOOK
Bell

In Freedom's Cause

Chapters 19-20
Archie rescues Marjory MacDougall, or as her real name is, Mary Kerr, from the convent of St. Kenneth. He weds her, and they go back to his castle to strengthen it so that the English won't take it.
Chapters 21-23
Archie goes out to join Douglas but he is attacked by the English, who he routes. They are met by Douglas who tells Archie that his castle is about to be under attack. Archie turns back, using his secret passage to get in. Archie takes most of his men to attack the camp with him, and, of her own will, has almost all of the rest of the men go and burn the machines the English were battering down the wall with. The English were in great disorder.

Archie was captured in a fight that followed, and he was taken to Berwick. Iron cages had been constructed there, made so that a normal-sized person could not lie down at night. The governor was a humane man, and he unlocked the door to the inner cell so that Archie could lay down.
He was to be killed in a few days, when he noticed that there were two women that had been staring at him for a long time. One of them was his wife! He couldn't recall the face of the other, but it looked familiar.
That night, he was passed up a rope with a saw and a bottle of oil. Using these he made his escape, and was taken into the home of one who was loyal to Scotland. He escaped out of the gate in a coffin, and soon was safely on his way to his own castle.

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Bell

Brendan Voyage

Brendan continued weaving through the ice, but it was not easy. At last, sliding over an iceberg, she sprung a leak. The crew used the pump to keep Brendan from swamping, but it was very tiring and they could not keep it up forever. They kept it up until morning, and then the captain found a leak. The tremendous pressure on the leather had burst a hole in one place, but they could fix it. George and and Trondur put a patch on it, which was something that they would not have been able to do if Brendan had not been made of leather.
That was the first and only time they let Brendan steer herself for a while. The crew was so exhausted that they just took down the sails and lashed the helm and went to sleep.

More soon!
Bell

In Freedom's Cause

Chapter 16:
The wild Irish took Archie and Ronald to see their chief, Fergus. He told Archie that, well the Irish wanted to get rid of the English, it would not be possible to do what the Scots had done and were doing. The Irish had no patience for that kind of fighting.  Archie then went to see another chief, and found the Irish there already in one of those small uprisings that occurred often. But they would not do anything except charge the enemy. Archie saw that the Irish could not do what the Scots had done, and so he went back with Ronald to the island were the king was.
Chapter 17
The king went back to the mainland, and he decided to keep on harrying the English. The English went after him several times, but they could not lay hands on him. They caught many others and killed them without mercy. The king would not kill any of his prisoners, but the young Douglass did. Douglass killed any and all of his prisoners, giving no more quarter than the English.
A great danger here came to the king. The English had his favorite blood-hound, and they kept trying to catch him with it. Archie determined to either kill the hound or to set it loose.
Chapter 18
Archie went to the English camp, and acted like he was a poor, half-witted man who had been one of Bruce's retainers. The English lord in charge of the camp gave him charge of the dog, Hector, on Archie's pretending that he used to wash the dog. Hector knew Archie, and they got along very well. A traitor came in and told them were Bruce had last slept. They took Hector out there and they almost caught the king. But they were going up a steep hillside, and when he got to the top ahead of the knights on foot who had followed him he set Hector free and pushed boulders down on the knights below. He then escaped and joined his men and later the king.
Marry Kerr sent her retainers to join him, which very much confused Archie, and here the chapter ends.
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Bell

Brendan Voyage

Brendan was just sailing along when she blundered into the remains of some pack ice that had been blown apart by a gale. She was in a lot of trouble, trying to keep off the ice and make sure that she wasn't squashed. The whole crew had to get up again and again, manning the sails to give more steering way or watching for ice ahead. They couldn't sleep anyway, with the ice knocking on the thin leather all around. The crew kept on in spite of this, but it was just not possible to avoid all the ice. It was all different colors, very pretty but you couldn't look at it without thinking what would happen if Brendan hit the ice, which rather ruined it. The colors would tell you what kind of ice it was, and if it was a choice between hitting one piece or the other, which one would be worse to hit. They kept on like this for a long time. At this point, the section ends.

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Bell

In Freedom's Cause

Archie was on the island of Rathlin with Bruce and such of Bruce's followers as remained with him. The fishermen had to go out in many weathers now, because of the visitors. Archie went out with them one day but a gale blew up so they turned back. The wind prevented them from getting to the land, and they had to head for an island where some monks had a monastery. The monks sheltered them until the storm had abated enough for them to get back to land. The king and his followers were very glad to get Archie back, and the king had a mission for him: to go and see if the Irish could help them or not. Archie set out with one of the fisherman's sons as interpreter. They got to the island and ended up in the same cave as some of the wild Irish.

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Bell

Brendan Voyage

Brendan was having some problems with waves. The captain was on watch, when a big wave came tumbling over Brendan and completely submerged her. It looked like she was going to roll over, but the air in her pulled her up to the surface. Nothing was broken or damaged except the captain's peace of mind. George had a similar experience during his watch but again nothing was damaged.

Brendan was supposedly well clear of the ice, but one day they saw floating chunks of ice. They thought that it was just an ice raft but they were wrong. They kept going, thinking that they would find the end soon, but it just stretched on and on. Then a ship came up, a Faroese ship. Brendan was almost invisible against the ice, but George had a brainwave. He used the signal mirror and Svanur headed over to them. She gave them some food, and pulled her out of the ice trap that they had blundered into. Not long after on that same day, an American ship came into view. They were very confused about Brendan, but once the Americans on board Mirfak understood they gave Brendan so much food that George had to give some of it back! Brendan sailed on, well away from the ice and provisioned in plenty.

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Bell

In Freedom's Cause

Chapter 12
Bruce had gathered his followers and they were ready to oppose the English. They were camped at Methven, having prepared to meet the English the next day. Archie was not pleased with the way that Bruce had thrown away all the advantages of the Scottish mobility.
They were resting, when the English charged then in the dark. The Scottish were defeated, but the king was saved though many nobles were taken prisoner.

Chapter 13
Bruce and his followers had to split and take to the woods. Archie went off hunting, and was attacked by some of the McDougalls  who were escorting a young lady. He surrendered to her, as he would have been killed otherwise and she promised him his life. She took him to the castle of Dunstaffnage where her uncle lived. He imprisoned Archie, to kill him the next morning. This would have been done but that the girl, Marjory, imposed upon the priest to help her set Archie free. This was done, and he rejoined Bruce in the forest.

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Bell

Brendan Voyage

The waves were swamping the boat. Every time a big or medium-sized one hit, it was back to the pumps quick and hope that you got the boat pumped out in time. The waves were getting to be a big problem, but they couldn't do much about it. If they tried to use some of the tarpaulin to cover the place the waves came in, that would just make another hole. Every time a wave came in it swamped the cabin. The radios were long-suffering, almost drowning every time. The journal that Tim was writing his notes in was soaked and the ink ran all over the pages. Tim was thinking about it when he remembered the spare pieces of leather that they had to plug leaks if needed. They used these to make a kind of shield around the helmsman, although it was very uncomfortable to steer. The waves quit swamping the boat now, and very seldom did one get in.

More later!
Bell

In Freedom's Cause-Chapters 10-11

Chapter 10
Edward was coming with an army, so Wallace got ready to meet it. He would have won the battle of Farlkirk, but Comyn, one of the Scottish nobles, deserted at the critical moment and insured that the Scots would lose. After this defeat, Wallace decided to go to France. He was sure that if he stayed in Scotland, the nobles would never join him. But if he left, they might rally together to help Scotland.
11
Archie was now 23 years old, and was tall and strong. He helped Comyn, the new champion of Scotland, when called upon, but did not really like Comyn.
Comyn surrendered to England, and Archie realized that there was no hope unless Robert the Bruce could be persuaded to join Scotland's cause. He went to London dressed as an English middle-class person and persuaded Bruce that his duty rested with his country.

Bruce and Comyn had made an agreement about the division of land and kingship that left Comyn the more powerful, though Bruce had not realized that. Comyn now went and revealed it to the king of England, betraying Bruce. Flight was unavoidable, and Bruce could do nothing about it. He and Archie fled to Scotland, there to finish what Wallace had begun.

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Brendan Voyage

Brendan has her crew back after their winter break. The weather was calm at first, giving them time to remember lessons learned the last year and get back into the swing of things. They had bird visitors as well as human ones.  Some fishermen stopped by and gave Brendan some of their catch.

But the good weather did not last forever. The bad weather struck, and the pack ice was not that far away. The winds were driving them towards the pack ice, the wrong direction for getting to North America. The stove stopped working, and the replacement parts didn't fit. Tim managed to make the stove work on one burner. Trondur caught seabirds often, so they had fresh meat.

The wind was still blowing them in the wrong direction, and they kept getting soaked by waves. They had to pump the boat out often or they would be waterlogged and the waves would sink them.

More soon!
Bell