Introductory material

’Twas after a wild and a hedgerow night I woke from my sleep the morn, And I heard a Parson saying his prayers All under a sweet white thorn. O solemn and lovely the words he said, Each word like a homing dove, Till I grew ashamed of my ill-spent life And the fern-seed manner thereof.

“O I will go down to Farmer Brown His cot in the rushy glen, And ask for work, and I’ll bear my part, A man in the world of men.” So I routed me up to a mortal size With a voice that I thickened rough, “And could I have bed for milking the cows, And the milk would be board enough?” “I’m thinking you’ve milked more purses than cows,” Says the Farmer astraddle the lea With his two big boots in a cowslip bed, “So it’s see and believe, for me!”

Well, the first that I tackled was old Brown Bess, And she was a shirker sure, But I shot her stiff with a few cold words On her ways wi’ the Bull o’ the Moor. And I milked her hard, and I milked her fast, And she dared not flicker one red Square half inch of her old cow hide, And the eyes popped out of his head. “Well, I milked her boy, and I milked her man, But never in all my days Has the old cow frothered up such a pail!” And the milk sang a roundelays,

Hollow and sweet in the empty pail, Tinkling round the brim, Hushy and soft when the pail was full, And O that was the beat of him.

Once out in the pasture I shunted size And I mounted a mullein stalk, And I gave the cattle (the ill-geered folk!) The a-hem of a Fairy talk. Then I drove them here, and I drove them there, Wherever the grass was sweet, Till their bellies bulged like a turnip top Set over their rootlet feet.

O I hunted them here, and I hunted them there, With whoop and halloo between, Till little they grew, and nimble and sweet Like the droves of the Fairy Queen. O the milk came out of those wee brown cows Creamy and rich and great, And white as a wreath of the Fairy foam With the floods of the Hills in spate. And the milkmaids milked, and the Goodwife milked, And the farmlads milked like mad, And the Goodman buttoned his breeches tight For the wad of a purse he had.

But wow! One night when the moon was full, At the minchiken Hour o’ Mouse, The de’il got into the cattle AND They danced it about the house. O! the Goodman swore, and the Goodwife swooned And the children were frantic things, But the de’il got into the cattle AND They danced it about in rings. Wi’ crumplety horns, and twinklety hoofs, They danced to a jigglety tune, While old Brown Bess in the van gave tongue To “The Cow Jumped over the Moon.”

O they sent for the Parson who brought the Book, And he hammered it out wi’ blows, And that was a wonderful, woeful night, And I went under the rose. O I dared not go, and I dared not stay, And my belly was cold the dawn, But break o’ the day, I was up and away, And over the fern seed gone! O I’ll not go back, and I daren’t go back, And the mortals may mind their cows, But the Goodman knows that the purse was full With Puck of the Hills to house.