Oak, Ash and Thorn Handmade Beaker

Description

Cosy and elegant beaker with sgraffito leaf designs, perfect for coffee, wine, water or whatever your favourite drink is. These beakers are fine for hot drinks but be aware they get hot! I also do mugs with handles so check them out if you prefer a handled vessel.

This design is inspired by the folk song Oak, Ash and Thorn, a Rudyard Kipling poem set to music by Peter Bellamy in the 1970s and sung by many folk musicians since!

They are brown satin matt temmoku glaze inside and out into which I have carved oak, ash and hawthorn leaves.  Each mug has all three leaves. The mugs are made of a white stoneware clay which is visible on the base and in the lines of the leaves. They are single fired.

Roughly 9.5 cm tall, 7-7.5 cm diameter.

Please note all of my work is handmade by me in my garden studio. There will be slight variations in shapes, glaze colour and patterns but all within a theme. I encourage the slight unpredictability and fluctuations and delight in mismatched sets. Each piece is unique.

Of all the trees that grow so fair,
Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak and Ash and Thorn.

Chorus (after each verse):
Sing Oak and Ash and Thorn, good Sirs
(All of a Midsummer’s morn)!
Surely we sing of no little thing,
In Oak and Ash and Thorn!

Oak of the Clay lived many a day,
Or ever Aeneas began;
Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,
When Brut was an outlaw man;
Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town
(From which was London born);
Witness hereby the ancientry
Of Oak and Ash and Thorn!

Yew that is old in churchyard mould,
He breedeth a mighty bow;
Alder for shoes do wise men choose,
And beech for cups also.
But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,
Your shoes are clean outworn,
Back ye must speed for all that ye need,
To Oak and Ash and Thorn!

Ellum she hates mankind, and waits
Till every gust be laid,
To drop a limb on the head of him,
That anyway trusts her shade:
But whether a lad be sober or sad,
Or mellow with ale from the horn,
He’ll take no wrong when he lieth along
’Neath Oak and Ash and Thorn!

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
Or he would call it a sin;
But—we’ve been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!
And we bring you news by word of mouth –
Good news for cattle and corn –
Now is the Sun come up from the South,
With Oak and Ash and Thorn!