The Stra'angers

The Stra’angers

 

Fo'ak i' these pa'arts, tha ca'alled um mostly tha " Stra'angers" ; or th' "tiddy people", 'ca'se tha wor none so big 's a new-born babby ; or th' "Greencoaties", fro' ther green jackets ; or mebbe th' "Yarthkin", sence tha doolt i' th' mools. But mostly th' Stra'angers, as a said afore : fur stra'ange tha be — i' looks 'n wa'ays — an' quare i' ther loikin's, an' stra'angers i' th' mid o' th' fo'ak.

 

The Stra’angers were tiddy critters,

Span-high, legs thin as thread,

Grass-green jackets, yellow bonnets

Like toadstools on their heads,

With queer little long-nosed faces,

Hound-voices in their throats.

There was nowt as odd as a Stra’anger

With his red tongue flapping about.

 

They were mischievous, fractious bodies

If you meddled with or crossed ‘em,

Less troublesome to respectful folk,

Though I wouldn’t say you’d trust ‘em.

On summer nights, they danced in moonshine

On the great, flat fenland stones

And as the crickets played, they’d reel

A-flexing their little bones.

 

In the harvest field, they’d ripen corn,

And laugh, and joke, and squabble;

They’d go wrestling with the poppy heads,

And tumbling through the stubble.

They’d pinch the buds to make them open,

Tug worms out of the earth,

Chase butterflies, tweak flower-buds,

Play fool for all their worth.

 

And on their stones, we’d lay a cabbage –

The first to be cut each year,

Or we’d give them our first potatoes,

With a tankard full of beer.

Time went, and men grew careless:

They brought on the years of dearth,

For they kept back all the vittles

And the firstlings of the earth.

 

So now your babe is starving

Ever since the harvest failed;

The green things have all dwindled

And the silo grain is soiled.

So get you to a great, flat stone;

Bring bread, and milk, and breath

Enough to sing a reel or two.

It’s either that – or death.

 

Lyric by Giles Watson, 2013. From ‘Legends of the Lincolnshire Cars’, recorded in Folklore, 1891, by Mrs Balfour.

 

 

 

 

Done