WITCHES AND FAIRIES

AT THE KEYHOLE

'Grill me some bones,' said the Cobbler,
     'Some bones, my pretty Sue;
I'm tired of my lonesome with heels and soles,
Springsides and uppers too;
A mouse in the wainscot is nibbling;
A wind in the keyhole drones;
And a sheet webbed over my candle, Susie, ---
     Grill me some bones!'

'Grill me some bones,' said the Cobbler,
     I sat at my tic-tac-to;
And a footstep came to my door and stopped,
And a hand groped to and fro;
And I peered up over my boot and last;
And my feet went cold as stones:
I saw an eye at the keyhole, Susie! ---
     Grill me some bones!'

PEAK AND PUKE

From his cradle in the glamourie
They have stolen my wee brother,
Housed a changeling in his swaddlings
For to fret my own poor mother.
Pules it in the candle light
Wi' a cheek so lean and white,
Chinkling up its eyne so wee
Wailing shrill at her an' me.
It we'll neither rock nor tend
Till the Silent Silent send,
Lapping in their awesome arms
Him they stole with spells and charms,
Till they take this changeling creature
Back to its own fairy nature --
Cry! Cry! As long as may be,
Ye shall ne'er be woman's baby!

THE HONEY ROBBERS

There were two Fairies, Gimmul and Mel,
Loved Earth Man's honey passing well;
Oft at the hives of his tame bees
They would their sugary thirst appease.

When dusk began to darken to night,
They would hie along in the fading light,
With elf-locked hair and scarlet lips,
And small stone knives to slit the skeps,
So softly not a bee inside
Should hear the woven straw divide:
And then with sly and greedy thumbs
Would rifle the sweet honeycombs.

And drowsily drone to drone would say,
'A cold, cold wind blows in this way';
And the great Queen would turn her head
From face to face, astonished,
And, though her maids with comb and brush
Would comb and soothe and whisper, 'Hush!'
About the hive would shrilly go
A keening -- keening, to and fro;
At which those robbers 'neath the trees
Would taunt and mock the honey-bees,
And through their sticky teeth would buzz
Just as an angry hornet does.

And when this Gimmul and this Mel
Had munched and sucked and swilled their fill,
Or ever Man's first cock could crow
Back to their Faerie Mounds they'd go;
Edging across the twilight air,
Thieves of a guise remotely fair.

LONGLEGS

Longlegs -- he yelled 'Coo-ee!'
     And all across the combe
Shrill and shrill it rang -- rang through
     The clear green gloom.
Fairies there were a-spinning,
     And a white tree-maid
Lifted her eyes, and listened
     In her rain-sweet glade.
Bunnie to bunnie stamped; old Wat
     Chin-deep in bracken sate;
A throstle piped, 'I'm by, I'm by!'
     Clear to his timid mate.
And there was Longlegs, straddling,
     And hearkening was he,
To distant Echo thrilling back
     A thin 'Coo-ee!'