Forgotten Ground Regained
Contributor
Withowinde Author
Patricia (Pat) Masson
Pat Masson (6 April 1940-October 1994) was a British poet and author who lived for many years in Cornwall (Bodmin Moor, St. Cleer, Perranporth) and later in Devon. She was active in the Tolkien Society and in Ða Engliscan Gesithas, a British historical society, and won that society’s Cædmon Prize in 1988 for her poem Dragon-Fighter (published in Wiðowinde, 83). During her lifetime, she published three other alliterative poems: Hymn to Earendil in Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society (reprinted in Issue 2), and two more in Wiðowinde: an Old English-style riddle and Mnemonic for the Futharc, a rune poem.
She died young from cancer, but her poetry and short stories were preserved in Nor Bid the Stars Farewell, a private booklet prepared by her mother for her funeral and distributed to family and friends. Her work is reprinted on Forgotten Ground Regained with the permission of her family.
The following poems were not published in her lifetime, and are published here for the first time:
A photograph of Pat Masson published in Nor Bid the Stars Farewell
- A Lay of St. Boniface (in Issue 2), “a text almost unparalleled within the Modern Alliterative Revival” (Dennis Wise)
- The Last Valkyrie (in Issue 2), which won honorable mention in the 2025 Rhysling Award competition run by the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
- The Yule Tree [incorporated in "A Lay of St. Boniface"]
- Making Waves: An Experiment in Allteration
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