A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter F

ferly

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A noun meaning a wonder, marvel, or strange thing; something causing amazement or surprise, used in medieval and dialectal poetry.

Detailed Definition
"Ferly" (also "ferlie") derives from Old English "fǣrlic" (sudden, terrible), becoming a noun meaning a wonder, marvel, or strange occurrence. Medieval romances employed it when describing supernatural events, unusual sights, or anything provoking amazement. The term appears in Scottish and Northern English poetry, where it maintained currency longer than in standard English. Poets used "ferly" when characters encountered wonders—magical beasts, mysterious castles, inexplicable events that drove romance narratives. Its associations with supernatural and marvelous made it valuable for genres requiring vocabulary appropriate to enchantment and wonder. The word's dialectal survival allowed later poets to evoke regional authenticity while accessing older literary traditions. Its compact expression of amazement and strangeness made it efficient for describing the marvelous phenomena that populated medieval and folk literature, where wonders required appropriate nomenclature distinguishing them from ordinary experiences.
Example
Example in poetry:
The travelers beheld a ferly sight upon the moor; "Such ferly creatures inhabit the enchanted wood"; Ferly means marvelous or strange; The ferly castle appeared only at midnight; Ferly visions haunted the prophet's dreams; Tales of ferly lands beyond the sea inspired explorers
Additional Notes
Ferly appears in medieval romances, chronicles, and dialectal poetry indicating supernatural or extraordinary phenomena. The term suggests both wonder (amazement) and strange occurrence (wonder as noun). Related to "fair" etymologically, though semantic connection unclear. Medieval texts use it for miracles, marvels, and unusual events requiring interpretation. Essential for analyzing medieval wonder-culture, supernatural elements in literature, and how texts construct extraordinary versus ordinary. The term reflects medieval worldview where wonders (ferles) were signs requiring reading and interpretation. Useful for discussing medieval epistemology, the marvelous in romance, and how literature represents responses to inexplicable phenomena. Compare with "marvel" (French origin) to understand Romance versus Germanic vocabulary for similar concepts.
Also Known As
wonder marvel astonishment surprise
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