The Dwarf of Nightingale

Nightingale was a hunting lodge

At the time of Baron Blood,

He was holed up there for a month or so

While the Tamar was in flood,

His knights went after a suckling pig

That they brought back to the Hall,

‘We’d best be merry and feast, my Lord,

Or there’ll be no fun at all.’

 

The waters rose and it cut them off

By the monastery at Bede,

So they made to raid the Monk’s own stocks

And they carried back the mead,

The hounds lay panting around the hearth

And the knights caroused ‘til dawn,

But the waters of the Tamar lay

Close round them every morn.

 

A cottage lay on the old floodway

By the side of a river wharf,

The waters drove a yeoman out

And his wife, a pretty dwarf,

They made their way to the hunting lodge

And begged that they might come in,

‘I’m Olaf, you are my liege, my Lord

And my wife is Tamerlin.’

 

‘And what do you bring?’ said Baron Blood,

Who looked for a little sport,

‘We’re all entombed ‘til the waters fall,

‘So what do you bring to court?’

‘I’m simply a yeoman, with one hide

That’s drowned in the river mud,

Along with my only ploughshare…’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Baron Blood.

 

‘What of the geld you owe to me,

And how do you think you’ll pay?’

‘I throw myself on your mercy, Lord,

To pay you another day.

The river flooded the pasture, and

My crop lies under the mud,’

‘Perhaps your wife has a way to pay,’

Said the musing Baron Blood.

 

‘You’ll wait at table and serve the mead

And carve the suckling pig,

And feed the hounds at the hearth tonight

While your wife can show a leg,

We’ll have her dancing from dusk to dawn

Each knight can take his turn,

For Tamerlin pays your geld tonight

If she lasts from dusk ‘til dawn.’

 

Then Olaf looked at his Tamerlin

And he brushed away a tear,

But she looked bold at the Baron Blood,

‘I will stand the test, no fear!’

They helped to set up the feast that night

And they whispered soft and low,

‘If one should harm a hair of your head

I will kill, before I go!’

 

She put one finger up to her lips

And she whispered, ‘I’ll be true!

I’ll not be whirled off my feet by one

Who is half the man as you.’

She took a skewer and she stuck the pig

Right through to the other side,

‘I may be small but my heart is big

And I’m still your darling bride.’

 

The sun went down and the mead came out

As he went to feed the hounds,

The Baron called on a lute to play

From a doorway to the grounds,

Then Tamerlin had begun to dance

And sway as she said she would,

Her dress had swished on the earthen floor,

Out where the Baron stood.

 

The knights were steadily getting drunk

And the Baron stood and swayed,

‘Now hitch that dress to your waist,’ he said,

‘If you want your geld to be paid.’

She dropped her eyes and she blushed, and cried

But she lifted up her dress,

To show the legs that were short, deformed

And the Baron laughed, no less!

 

The Baron laughed and the knights had laughed

At the legs of Tamerlin,

She dropped the dress and she burst in tears

And she cried, ‘You’ve seen my sin!’

They didn’t ask her to dance again

But they drank until the morn,

Then fell about in a drunken swoon

As she lay apart, forlorn.

 

A silence fell as the sun came up

When she rose and took a skewer,

Walked to the sleeping Baron, and

She thrust it in his ear,

She thrust it in til it came on out

All blood on the other side,

‘You won’t be laughing again,’ she said,

‘Or shaming Olaf’s bride!’

 

They took a skewer to every knight

And they did the same to them,

In, and out at the other side,

A Hall of skewered men,

The waters, they were receding as

Her head, in pride upheld,

Remarked, ‘It’s time we were leaving,

We have truly paid the geld!’

 

Nightingale was a hunting lodge

That sank in a sea of mud,

You’d have to dig right down to find

The body of Baron Blood,

The woods grew up in the pasture fields

And covered the grisly tale,

Where lovers walk and will cease their talk

At the song of a Nightingale.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Tomás Ó C..]

Grisly and engrossing!!! Good on her!!!

[Arrinae]

I definately enjoyed this one, as I do of all of your work! Thank you for sharing it with me.

[A Soap Mess Stories]

My what a gruesome tale told well by your fine storytelling...

[Baby Ricochet]

A Gruesome tale if ever there was one.

[Marie]

A grisly tale indeed. It doesn't pay to laugh at little people...

[Raymond Federle]

AWESOME! This is a keeper dude! :)

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

Indeed David, there is a walk one takes when lovers meet and discovery of pleasure and evils, well done, good read.