The Castle in the Marsh

The 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

Reviews

[Valentine]

So much of this sounds like the old history of Great Britain..I do not know enough about it to know if any of these names are real..but you have done another fabulous job bringing history alive in poetry..You are the best master of this type of writing david..I pray you are feeling much better//We all love you on here remember...love and God bless Lyn and you.Kathie

[Doreen]

A wonderfully written tale as always. I love your work.

[Tate Morgan]

Beautiful telling of the injustices wrought upon the serfs.Just a wonderful tale dave.I see it in my head a whole feature movie of the time .Very well done!

[Marie]

The Baron got what he deserved, and it was well the castle was turnt down. But what did Aethelflaed expect? Even if the baby was forced on her, it was innocent.

[Lena M. P.]

Sometimes it is not the storming of the castle that destroys it, but the poison from within. Great story David and eerie as always.