Your Grandmother
Remember, remember, there’s many a thing
your grandmother doesn’t dig
if it ain’t got that swing;
many a piece of swag
she won’t pick up and put in her bag
if it seems like a drag.
She painted it red – the town –
she lassooed the moon.
Remember, remember, your grandmother
boogied on down.
Remember, remember, although your grandmother’s old,
she shook, she rattled, she rolled.
She was so cool she was cold,
she was solid gold.
Your grandmother played it neat,
wore two little blue suede shoes
on her dancing feet –
oo, reet-a-teet-teet –
Remember, remember, your grandmother
got with the beat.
Remember, remember, it ain’t what you do
it’s the way that you do it.
Your grandmother knew it –
she had a balloon and she blew it,
she had a ball
and was belle of it
just for the hell of it.
She was Queen of the night.
Remember, remember, your grandmother’s
aaaaaaaaaaaallllllll riiiiiiiiiiiight.
Carol Ann Duffy
Rooty Tooty
Grandad used to be a pop star,
with a red-and-silver guitar.
He wore leather jackets and drainpipe jeans.
He drove around in limousines,
waving to screaming fans.
Fab! said Grandad. Groovy!
I really dig it, man!
Grandad used to have real hips,
he swivelled and did The Twist.
His record went to Number One.
Grandad went like this:
Rooty tooty, yeah yeah.
Rooty tooty, yeah yeah.
Rooty tooty, yeah yeah.
Then Grandad met Gran.
Gran was dancing under a glitterball.
Grandad was on bass.
He noticed how a thousand stars
sparkled and shone in her face.
And although Gran fancied the drummer,
Grandad persevered. He wrote Gran
a hundred love songs
down through their happy years.
Grandad used to be a pop star,
a rock’n’roll man –
Rooty tooty, yeah yeah yeah –
and Grandad loved groovy Gran,
Carol Ann Duffy
Grandpa’s Soup
No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s,
with its diced carrots the perfect size
and its diced potatoes the perfect size
and its wee soft bits –
what are their names? –
and its big bit of hough,
which rhymes with loch, floating
like a rich island in the middle of the soup sea.
I say. Grandpa, Grandpa, your soup is the
best soup in the whole world.
And Grandpa says, Och,
which rhymes with hough and loch,
Och, don’t be daft,
because he’s shy about his soup, my Grandpa.
He knows I will grow up and pine for it.
I will fall ill and desperately need it.
I will long for it my whole life after he is gone.
Every soup will become sad and wrong after
he is gone.
He knows when I’m older I will avoid soup altogether.
Oh Grandpa, Grandpa, why is your soup so glorious? I say,
tucking into my fourth bowl in a day.
Barley! That’s the name of the wee soft bits. Barley.
Jackie Kay
NYMPHS, MERMAIDS, FAIRIES, WITCHES – AND ONE GIANTESS
Overheard on a Saltmarsh
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.
No.
Give them me. Give them me.
No.
Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?
They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man’s fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush, I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads, I want them.
No.
I will howl in a deep lagoon
For your green glass beads. I love them so
Give them me. Give them.
No
Harold Monro
from Prothalamion
There, in a meadow, by the river’s side,
A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks all loose untied,
As each had been a bride;
And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs entrailèd curiously,
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropped full feateously
The tender stalks on high.
Of every sort, which in that meadow grew,
They gathered some, the violet pallid blue,
The little daisy that at evening closes,
The virgin lily, and the primrose true,
With store of vermeil roses,
To deck their bridegrooms’ posies,
Against the bridal day, which was not long:
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
Edmund Spenser
Sabrina Fair
Sabrina fair
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
Listen for dear honour’s sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save.
John Milton
The Mermaid
I
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?
II
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day.
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I combed I would sing and say,
‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound,
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Merman
I
Who would be
A merman bold,
Sitting alone,
Singing alone
Under the sea,
With a crown of gold,
On a throne?
II
I would be a merman bold;
I would sit and sing the whole of the day.
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power
But at night I would roam abroad and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kissed me
Laughingly, laughingly;
And then we would wander away, away,
To the pale sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Wish
She wished she could fly.
She wished for friends
who were birds and flowers.
she wished she wore a silver frock.
She wished she could speak
with a magic tongue.
She wished so hard.
Now she works
in the baker’s shop.
She wears a white coat
and a netted cap.
She speaks the language
of mam and dad
and at the end of each day
her feet hurt.
But at night she carries her baby
up to the stars. She sings to him
in the language of flowers.
He reaches out to touch her silver wings.
Mandy Coe
The Girl Who Could See Fairies
Wings whispered about her hair
as she walked, half in the Otherworld,
half in the mortal realm.
She saw massive oaks
dwarfing the grimy buildings,
overlaying them like great, dark ghosts.
She glimpsed, with her double vision,
a white stag leaping through the passing traffic
and felt a wreath of berries placed lightly on her head.
Bluebells burst through the pavement beneath her feet
and she trod through them as if in a dream.
Nobody believed that she could see fairies.
She was mocked
and, eventually, locked
into a hospital room
from where, one day,
she stepped out of the mortal world
and into the Otherworld,
leaving the room empty
but for the scent of forests.
Marian Swinger
The Spider
The fairy child loved her spider.
Even when it grew fat
And grey and old,
She would comb its warm fur
With a hazel twig
And take it for slow walks
On its silky lead.
Sometimes it played cat-cradles with her
But more often it wove hammocks
Among the long grasses
And they swung together under friendly trees.
When it died,
Her mother bought her a money spider
Who scuttled and tumbled to make her smile.
But it wasn’t the same,
And still, when she curls up to sleep
In the lonely dawn,
She murmurs her old spider’s name.
Clare Bevan
A Fairy Went a-Marketing
A fairy went a-marketing –
She bought a little fish;
She put it in a crystal bowl
Upon a golden dish.
An hour she sat in wonderment
And watched its silver gleam,
And then she gently took it up
And slipped it in a stream.
A fairy went a-marketing –
She bought a coloured bird;
It sang the sweetest, shrillest song
That ever she had heard.
She sat beside its painted cage
And listened half the day,
And then she opened wide the door
And let it fly away.
A fairy went a-marketing –
She bought a winter gown
All stitched about with gossamer
And lined with thistledown.
She wore it all the afternoon
With prancing and delight,
Then gave it to a little frog
To keep him warm at night.
A fairy went a-marketing –
She bought a gentle mouse
To take her tiny messages,
To keep her tiny house.
All day she kept its busy feet
Pit-patting to and fro,
And then she kissed its silken ears,
Thanked it, and let it go.
Rose Fyleman
The Fairy’s Song
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours.
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
William Shakespeare
The Fairies
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap.
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
William Allingham
Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes in the Air
Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,
Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair;
Then thrice three times tie up this true love’s knot.
And murmur soft: ‘She will, or she will not.’
Go burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire,
These screech-owl’s feathers and this prickling briar,
This cypress gathered at a dead man’s grave,
That all thy fears and cares an end may have.
Then come, you fairies, dance with me a round;
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound.
In vain are all the charms I can devise;
She hath an art to break them with her eyes.
Thomas Campion
The Old Witch in the Copse
I am a witch, and a kind old witch,
There’s many a one that knows that –
Alone I live in my little dark house
With Pillycock, my cat
A girl came running through the night
When all the winds blew free:—
‘O mother, change a young man’s heart
That will not look on me.
O mother, brew a magic mead
To stir his heart so cold.’