Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by DavidPrice, . Many thanks to Norfolk andNorwich Millennium Library, UK, for kindly supplying the imagesfrom which this transcription was made.
by
GEORGE BORROW
London:
printed for private circulation
1913
There lies a wold in Vester Haf,
There builds a boor his hold;
And thither he carries hawk and hound,
He’ll stay through winter’s cold.
He takes with him both hound and cock,
He means there long to stay;
The wild deer in the wood that are
For his arrival pay.
He hews the oak and poplar tall,
He fells the good beech tree;
Then fill’d was the laidly Trold with spite
That he should make so free.
p.6He hews him posts, he hews him balks,
He early toils and late;
Out spake the Trolds within the hill:
“Who knocks at such a rate?”
Then up and spake the youngest Trold,
As emmet small to view:
“O here is come a Christian man,
But verily he shall rue.”
Upstood the smallest of the Trolds,
And round he roll’d his eyes:
“O we will hie to the yeoman’s house,
And o’er him hold assize.
“He hews away our sheltering wood,
Meanwhile shall we be tame?
No! I from him his wife will take,
And make him suffer shame.”
All the Trolds in the hill that were
Wild for the fray upbound;
They hie away to the yeoman’s house,
Their tails all curling round.
p.7Seven and a hundred were the Trolds,
Their laidliness was great;
To the yeoman’s house they’ll go as guests,
With him to drink and eat.
The hound is yelling in the yard,
The herdsman blows his horn;
Crows the cock and clucks the hen
As the yeoman throws them corn.
Of Villenskov the yeoman saw
The Trolds the window through:
“Now help me Jesu, Mary’s son,
Those trolds have me in view.”
He sign’d the cross in every nook,
But mostly in his room;
Some of the Trolds in fright thereat
Flew to the forest’s gloom.
Some flew east, and some flew west,
And some flew north away;
And others flew to the valleys deep,
Where still, I trow, they stay.
p.8But ah! the smallest of the Trolds
Bold enter’d at the door;
For crossing he refus’d to flee,
Was bent on mischief sore.
The housewife thought of a good device,
She plac’d him at the board,
And before him set both ale and meat,
With many a courteous word.
“Hear, husbandman of Villenskov,
Attend to what I say;
Who has to thee permission given
To build where I have sway?
“Since thou to build within my bounds
Hast ta’en the liberty,
Thou shalt to me thy housewife give,
For I with her will lie.”
Then answer made the hapless man,
As God gave him the thought:
“Thou shalt not Ellen get from me,
Like her I value nought.”
p.9He answer made unto the Trold:
“Let but my wife alone,
And do thou take my money and goods,
And keep them for thy own.”
“Then I will Ellen take, and thee,
And tread ye both to gore;
And I will take thy silver and gold
And hide it ’neath my floor.”
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