The Day The Cockerel Died Poem by David Lewis Paget

There’s a man been hung at the old crossroads
In the village of Little Deeping,
And in his pockets a couple of toads
That were there when they caught him, creeping,
They bound his arms and they hung him high
On the bough of a mystic rowan,
And filled his stuttering mouth with straw
To quell the spell of his going.

The village is set in a mystery
That was old when the world was growing,
Three thousand years of its history
Is lost to the world, unknowing,
The valley’s not in the land of them
Who are yet to stumble upon it,
For men live now as they once lived then
With their wives in a primrose bonnet.

And superstition is rife down there
In the village of Little Deeping,
Where women never reveal their hair
With men in the meadow, reaping,
They take their water deep from a well
And light each cottage with lamplight,
Using a primitive type of oil
That seeps from the soil, in moonlight.

Their brides leap over a witches broom
When the harvest grain is swelling,
Under the beams of a crescent moon
With a bonfire near their dwelling,
They change their partners every year
If their bellies haven’t swollen,
Or hang their charms up over the door
So their offspring won’t be stolen.

They live their lives by the Druid gods
Who would bring about the seasons,
And never question the rights and wrongs
For nature has its reasons,
Their days began at the break of dawn
To the sound of the cockerel crowing,
An ancient bird with its comb and spurs
That would bring the sun up, showing.

But Tam Eilann was a surly man
Who would often lie in, sleeping,
Dreaming away the early day
While the rest were out there, reaping,
He hated hearing the cockerel crow
As it bid the sun, its rising,
When he said, ‘that cockerel has to go, ’
He was more than just surmising.

One autumn night, he snuffed his light
Went out in the darkness, creeping,
And caught the only cockerel left
In the village of Little Deeping,
His knife flashed once in the cold moonlight
And left the cockerel dying,
His neighbours hurried to see the sight
Of their only cockerel, lying.

‘You’ve shamed the gods and must pay the odds, ’
They said as they bound him, crying,
Then hung him high on the rowan tree
And cursed, as they watched him dying.
The cattle low in the byre still
And the bees, they stay in the hive,
For there’s not been a single sunrise there
Since the day the cockerel died.

15 December 2013