| |
| FROM the bonny bells of heather | |
| They brewed a drink long-syne, | |
| Was sweeter far than honey, | |
| Was stronger far than wine. | |
| They brewed it and they drank it, | 5 |
| And lay in a blessed swound | |
| For days and days together | |
| In their dwellings underground. | |
| |
| There rose a king in Scotland, | |
| A fell man to his foes, | 10 |
| He smote the Picts in battle, | |
| He hunted them like roes. | |
| Over miles of the red mountain | |
| He hunted as they fled, | |
| And strewed the dwarfish bodies | 15 |
| Of the dying and the dead. | |
| |
| Summer came in the country, | |
| Red was the heather bell; | |
| But the manner of the brewing | |
| Was none alive to tell. | 20 |
| In graves that were like children’s | |
| On many a mountain head, | |
| The Brewsters of the Heather | |
| Lay numbered with the dead. | |
| |
| The king in the red moorland | 25 |
| Rode on a summer’s day; | |
| And the bees hummed, and the curlews | |
| Cried beside the way. | |
| The king rode, and was angry; | |
| Black was his brow and pale, | 30 |
| To rule in a land of heather | |
| And lack the Heather Ale. | |
| |
| It fortuned that his vassals, | |
| Riding free on the heath, | |
| Came on a stone that was fallen | 35 |
| And vermin hid beneath. | |
| Rudely plucked from their hiding, | |
| Never a word they spoke: | |
| A son and his aged father— | |
| Last of the dwarfish folk. | 40 |
| |
| The king sat high on his charger, | |
| He looked on the little men; | |
| And the dwarfish and swarthy couple | |
| Looked at the king again. | |
| Down by the shore he had them; | 45 |
| And there on the giddy brink— | |
| “I will give you life, ye vermin, | |
| For the secret of the drink.” | |
| |
| There stood the son and father | |
| And they looked high and low; | 50 |
| The heather was red around them, | |
| The sea rumbled below. | |
| And up and spoke the father, | |
| Shrill was his voice to hear: | |
| “I have a word in private, | 55 |
| A word for the royal ear. | |
| |
| “Life is dear to the aged, | |
| And honor a little thing; | |
| I would gladly sell the secret,” | |
| Quoth the Pict to the King. | 60 |
| His voice was small as a sparrow’s, | |
| And shrill and wonderful clear: | |
| “I would gladly sell my secret, | |
| Only my son I fear. | |
| |
| “For life is a little matter, | 65 |
| And death is nought to the young; | |
| And I dare not sell my honor | |
| Under the eye of my son. | |
| Take him, O king, and bind him, | |
| And cast him far in the deep; | 70 |
| And it ’s I will tell the secret | |
| That I have sworn to keep.” | |
| |
| They took the son and bound him, | |
| Neck and heels in a thong, | |
| And a lad took him and swung him, | 75 |
| And flung him far and strong, | |
| And the sea swallowed his body, | |
| Like that of a child of ten;— | |
| And there on the cliff stood the father, | |
| Last of the dwarfish men. | 80 |
| |
| “True was the word I told you: | |
| Only my son I feared; | |
| For I doubt the sapling courage | |
| That goes without the beard. | |
| But now in vain is the torture, | 85 |
| Fire shall never avail: | |
| Here dies in my bosom | |
| The secret of Heather Ale.” | |
| |
