This page contains information, links and pdf files which are relevant to the series of River Friend books. It is provided free of charge, but please respect copyright of the different authors. Thank you.
RFS6: “An Introduction to the WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE (A River Friend Series Reference Book)”
If you would like to just browse this book for information, it is available to download free of charge: Download RFS6
If you wish to purchase a hard copy of this book, please click HERE
RFS3: “A PROLOGUE TO THE SERIES: Plant Identification and Glossary of Terms”
Although this book can be purchased, it is also provided here free of charge as a Guide for the whole series of River Friend books. It contains relevant terminology explanations, a low-resolution picture guide and reference section for further reading. Download RFS3
If you wish to purchase a hard copy of this book, please click HERE
RFS5: “REED—ON THE EDGE”
In Book 5 in the River Friend Series “REED—ON THE EDGE”, there is mention of St Guthlac and Beowulf. Below are two illustrations from the book (illumination roundels) about St Guthlac’s life; and the Beowulf Poem can be downloaded here: Download Beowulf.
From: What Rivers do for Us: Complete poem by G K Chesterton
Wine and Water
Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale,
He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail,
And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was Whale,
But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail,
And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
“I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.”
The cataract of the cliff of heaven fell blinding off the brink
As if it would wash the stars away as suds go down a sink,
The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to drink,
And Noah he cocked his eye and said, “It looks like rain, I think,
The water has drowned the Matterhorn as deep as a Mendip mine,
But I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.”
But Noah he sinned, and we have sinned; on tipsy feet we trod,
Till a great big black teetotaller was sent to us for a rod,
And you can’t get wine at a P. S. A., or chapel, or Eisteddfod,
For the Curse of Water has come again because of the wrath of God,
And water is on the Bishop’s board and the Higher Thinker’s shrine,
But I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.
G K Chesterton. 1914. (English critic, novelist and poet 1874–1936.)
From: STREAM STORY: Another Riveting Riverscape—River Cam, Cambridge
- Oh, What Have You Got for Dinner, Mrs. Bond?
“Oh, what have you got for dinner, Mrs. Bond?”
“There’s beef in the larder, and ducks in the pond;”
“Dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, come to be killed,
For you must be stuffed, and my customers filled!”
“John Ostler, go fetch me a duckling or two,
John Ostler go fetch me a duckling or two;
Cry dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed,
For you must be stuffed, and my customers filled!”
“I have been to the ducks that are swimming in the pond,
And they won’t come to be killed, Mrs. Bond;”
I cried, “Dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed,
For you must be stuffed, and the customers filled!”
Mrs. Bond she went down to the pond in a rage,
With plenty of onions, and plenty of sage;
She cried, “Come, little wag-tails, come, and be killed.
For you shall be stuffed, and my customers filled!”
Old English Nursery Song
2. TEXT OF KUBLAI KHAN (Xanadu). POEM by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (published 1816)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.