The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

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KJV Bible

1435

© Paul Buckingham, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Caedmon Learns to Sing by Clay Lane

A shy and unmusical stable-hand suddenly began to sing wise and moving hymns.

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1436

© Neithsabes, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Elisha and the Fiery Horsemen by Clay Lane

The King of Syria goes on a mole-hunt, but Elisha does not seem to mind being his prime suspect.

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1437

© Colin Smith, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.

The Tichborne Dole by Clay Lane

The strange-but-true story of a Lady Day tradition.

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1438

© Rob Campbell, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Romulus and the Sabine Women by Clay Lane

The legend of how Rome was settled gave rise to the March festival of Roman motherhood.

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1439

© Andrey Mironov, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Man Born Blind by Clay Lane

A man born blind is healed by Jesus, but finds himself a social outcast as a result.

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1440

© Marie-Lan Nguyen, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Alcibiades by Clay Lane

In the populist democracy of 5th-century BC Athens, heroes fell as quickly as they rose.

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Clay Lane The Copybook
About Clay Lane nicholas@claylane.uk

© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

May 14 NS

May 1 OS

Britain’s Jews : After a thousand years of uneasy cohabitation, Edward I decided that there was no place for Jews in his Kingdom.
Sentegrams : These sentences, taken from English literature, have been jumbled up like an anagram; see if you can piece them back together.
Good Sense : Rewrite these sentences so that the word ‘unless’ is not used.
The Coronation of Anne Boleyn : The weight of the crown that Anne Boleyn wore proved too heavy to bear.
Abstract : Use these words in sentences as a Noun, Verb or Adjective.
Better By Example : Gregory urged the persecuted Christians of Nazianzus to be the better men.
Speed Clues : Help a friend to guess five words in under a minute.
A Proper Game of Cricket : Mary Mitford makes an appeal for the traditional village cricket match.
Mini Bios : Write a short paragraph about a prominent person, but don’t start any sentence with he or she.
A Thousand Commas : Assess the punctuation of this sentence, according to the author’s own principles.
Batter My Heart : John Donne gives God a free hand to do whatever needs to be done.
Window Seat : Describe the view from one of the following vantage points.
Repeat Offender :
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