The Castle in the MarshA Poem by David Lewis PagetThe
Castle out in the marshes ruled The
serfs with an iron rod, The
yeomen, hidden in cottages, Were
careful where they trod, The
soldiers poured from the Castle walls And
rode the peasants down, They
stole the women they caught abroad And
returned to the Castle grounds. There
was only a single causeway that Was
guarded, night and day, Many
a father came to grief When
crossing the moat, to pay, To
save his daughter from certain shame, A
fate that, worse than death, Was
tearing the heart from Amber Vale As
the mothers mourned, distressed. The
Baron, Ralph Fitzherbert held His
acres from the King, (That
William, known as Rufus, who Would
hunt most anything), He
was known as ‘Baron Slaughter’ For
he murdered them at will, He
burdened them all with taxes, Raped
and pillaged, and then he’d kill. The
women held in the Castle Keep Were
set to work, and raped, They
scrubbed in the kitchen galley, cooked The
food, and cleaned the grate, Two
of their number were trusted to Go
out in the misty marsh, Collecting
the herbs and mushrooms for The
Captain of the Guard. But
Aethelflaed had been pregnant with Fitzherbert’s
only son, She
came to term in the August and She
hated everyone: ‘The
boy’s as good as a Norman, I’m The
wife of a Saxon squire,’ She
wept, and then she had strangled it, Throwing
it in the fire! Fitzherbert
ranted all day long, Lamenting
what she’d done, ‘I
should have known that a Saxon w***e’s Not
fit to bear my son!’ He
stripped and flayed ‘til the flesh had peeled, ‘Til
he thought that his arm would tire, Then
dragged her over the hearth, and placed Her
hands in the blazing fire! They
hung her naked from a tree As
the villagers came to wail, Then
rode and murdered her husband there In
the village of Amber Vale, The
women held in the Castle wept At
the Normans’ cruelty, They’d
whisper: ‘That was Aethelflaed, But
it might as well be me!’ The
Baron held a feast that night And
they drank of their Norman wine, From
casks brought in from Normandy But
opened before they dined, By
midnight they were vomiting Were
helpless, caught in a trance, From
the berries of deadly nightshade squeezed As
the women began to dance. They
lopped off every soldier’s head As
they lay, none thought it harsh, Then
they bound and carried the Baron out And
thrust him into the marsh, With
an apple jammed in his gaping jaw And
his glaring eyes so big, He
sank ‘til his head was all they saw Like
the head of a slaughtered pig. The
trees at Amber Vale were hung With
a strange but exotic fruit, The
heads of the soldiers hanging there With
their coats of mail, to suit, They
stormed the Castle and burnt it down The
ruins would make you quail, For
Belladonna is nurtured there By
the village of Amber Vale! David
Lewis Paget © 2012 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
Reviews
|
StatsAuthor
Related WritingPeople who liked this story also liked..
|