And such a sight as she saw there, And such a sight as she saw there, A burning cauldron stood in the midst, And round about the cauldron stout Their hands were gory too; and red And suddenly they join'd their hands, And round about the cauldron stout And now they stopt; and each prepar'd Since last the lady of the night, Behind a rock stood Gondoline, Thick weeds her face did veil, And she lean'd fearful forwarder, The first arose: She said she'd seen And a jovial storm had brew'd. She called around the winged winds, And she laugh'd so loud, the peals were heard She said there was a little bark Upon the roaring wave, And there was a woman there who'd been And she had got a child in her arms, It was her only child, Her heavy heart beguil'd. And there was too, in that same bark, A father and his son; The lad was sickly, and the sire Was old and woe-begone. And when the tempest waxed strong, And the bark could no more it 'bide, She said it was jovial fun to hear The mother clasp'd her orphan child Unto her breast, and wept; And, sweetly folded in her arms, The careless baby slept. And she told how, in the shape o' the wind, She twisted her hand in the infant's hair And to have seen the mother's pangs, The hag held a lock of the hair in her hand It must have been a lovely child And she said, the father in his arms And his dying throes they fast arose, And she throttled the youth with her sinewy hands, And his face grew deadly blue; And the father he tore his thin And kiss'd the livid hue. grey hair, And then she told, how she bor'd a hole The man and woman, they soon were dead, And the winds sung their funeral dirge. She threw the infant's hair in the fire, And round about the cauldron stout The second begun, she said she had done The task that Queen Hecat' had set her, She said, there was an aged woman, The daughter had a paramour, And the hag had work'd the daughter up And one night as the old woman Her wicked daughter led, She heard her footstep on the floor, And she rais'd her pallid head, And she saw her daughter, with a knife, And she said, my child, I'm I have not long to live, very ill, Now kiss my cheek, that ere I die And the murd'ress bent to kiss her cheek, But pray'rs would nothing her avail, But the house was lone, and the piercing screams And, though that she was sick and old, And the hag she held the fingers up, And she threw the fingers in the fire,' And round about the cauldron stout The third arose: She said she'd been And seen more blood in one short day |