by Guilhem, editor

Clarke’s Printery is Honored to Present Tales from Ages Past!
Guilhem the Scholar Shall End Each Volume with Staid Commentary.

THE RHYME
Dance in the Star Chamber
And Dance in the Pit
And Eat of your Entrees
In the Glass House you Sit.

COMMENTARY

A common rhyme for little babies, ’tis thought that this littl(e) ditty is part of the corpus of legendary tales regarding the world before Sosaria (see the wonderful fables of Fabio the Poor for fictionalized versions of these stories, also available from this same publisher). According to these old tales, which survive mostly in th(e) hills and remote villages where Lord British is as yet a distant and mythical ruler, the gods of old (a fanciful notion!) met to discuss the progress of creating the world in mystical rooms. A simple analysis reveals these rooms to be mere mythological generalizations.

“The Star Chamber” is clearly a reference to the sky. “The Pit” is certainl(y) an Underworld analogous to the Snake hills of other tales, and “the Glass House” is no doubt the vantage point from which the gods observed their creation. All is simple when seen from this perspective, leaving only the mysterious reference to dinners(.) Oddly enough the rhyme is universally(y) used only for midnight feedings, never during the day.