 |
| Leat on the road between Two Bridges and Princetown - by Tom Jolliffe [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
[cont...] "...Es likker 'ad warmed en to that there degree,
That he vailed vast asleep, and his osses you zee,
Forgetting the whip, stapped and grazed 'pon the road,
But how long they bided there nobody knowed.
Jan dreamed 'bout some pixies
And other strange folk,
When the miners corned up,
All alive for a joke.
They unharnessed his osses,
And drove mun away,
Leaving Jan vast asleep
On the porch of the shay.
When the zun in the East wuz beginning to rise,
Jan Pook, half awake,
Vailed to rubbing his eyes.
" Who be I ? Where be I ?"
Zed Jan in a maze :
" Here's a drunken old zun-
Of-a-gun on a shays.
If I be Jan Pook,
I may zay to my cost
A pair of post osses
I've sartinly lost.
If I baint Jan Pook
'Tez a fortinite day,
For I'm burned if I aint
Been and found a post shay."
That he vailed vast asleep, and his osses you zee,
Forgetting the whip, stapped and grazed 'pon the road,
But how long they bided there nobody knowed.
Jan dreamed 'bout some pixies
And other strange folk,
When the miners corned up,
All alive for a joke.
They unharnessed his osses,
And drove mun away,
Leaving Jan vast asleep
On the porch of the shay.
When the zun in the East wuz beginning to rise,
Jan Pook, half awake,
Vailed to rubbing his eyes.
" Who be I ? Where be I ?"
Zed Jan in a maze :
" Here's a drunken old zun-
Of-a-gun on a shays.
If I be Jan Pook,
I may zay to my cost
A pair of post osses
I've sartinly lost.
If I baint Jan Pook
'Tez a fortinite day,
For I'm burned if I aint
Been and found a post shay."
MORAL.
Don't drink wey no miners,
Now mind what I zay,
Don't nivver pull up
To no Saracen's Head,
Spurn alcoholic drinks
Vur the rest of your days,
And you'll not lost no osses,
Nor vind a post shays."
Now mind what I zay,
Don't nivver pull up
To no Saracen's Head,
Spurn alcoholic drinks
Vur the rest of your days,
And you'll not lost no osses,
Nor vind a post shays."
Hewett 1900
[Pook puts me in mind of Shakespearean Puck, and also of the Puggie stone in Chagford, said to be etymologically mid way between Puck and Pixie - Devonian speakers have a habit of retaining the Olde English ee sound in words - "Dart-ee-moor" "Chag-ee-Vord", hence the thought that Pixie might be Puck-ee...]
No comments:
Post a Comment