An Economy?
I still have to do the historical grunt work on this see if I can find wood of allabair and argatbran may be.
So I am having to start with an eductated guess. They are wonders, or at least difficult to obtain and rare objects.
At the start the speaker would appear to have great expetations. The desire to hold high prestege portable objects that signify power and status.
The exchange of such objects oils the aristocratic economy.
We then learn that the subject seeks to engage in an act of suppertnatural theft. Traditionaly in Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales such magical acts are almost exculsivly related to the theft of dairy produce, i.e. butter and milk.
Here we are within the life and rhythm of a farming community, such magical signs and countersigns are the bread and butter of dispute.
Here the goods people have acesses to are generrally the same, Its not high status objects that distingush but having more than. More cows, butter, milk, etc.
The fist move seems to be to desire to be apart from, to have higher status through acesses to rare and valuable objects.
The next, the desire for status is still perhaps present but is measured through the lens of village expectations, to have more than.
So we have, apart from, more than as the first two moves.
Look and see if the closing punch line is, same as and potentialy, less than.
These basic moves give me a complete emotional register. A strong emotional hook at the start and one at the end.
It also gives me some freedom with the verse it can be delivered with melancholic pathos or it can be presented with some humour.
It appears to be in part economic with its language and thought.
Or prehaps it just presents an open gap in space and time, which I can fill and explore what I know about such things.
The poem does not hold a space in my thought because of what it contians. Its what I bring to it that creates its shape in this moment.
