never the swain

Written by Cathoel Jorss, published 11 years ago

Two swains drifting like white roses on the dark canal. My Berliner swain calls them swains and I never correct him. Similarly I refrained for reasons of selfish enjoyment from pointing out to an earlier, South Australian swain, who though a native speaker was heartily dyslexic (he called our chimney ‘the chumley’), that the swans’ babies are commonly called ‘cygnets’. ‘Look Oel. A mummy and a daddy swan. And all the little swanlings.’