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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365901" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Castle in the Marsh</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Castle out in the marshes ruled<br>The serfs with an iron rod, <br>The yeomen, hidden in cottages, <br>Were careful where they trod, <br>The soldiers poured from the Castle walls<br>And rode the peasants down, <br>They stole the women they caught abroad<br>And returned to the Castle grounds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was only a single causeway that<br>Was guarded, night and day, <br>Many a father came to grief<br>When crossing the moat, to pay, <br>To save his daughter from certain shame, <br>A fate that, worse than death, <br>Was tearing the heart from Amber Vale<br>As the mothers mourned, distressed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Baron, Ralph Fitzherbert held<br>His acres from the King, <br>(That William, known as Rufus, who<br>Would hunt most anything) , <br>He was known as ‘Baron Slaughter'<br>For he murdered them at will, <br>He burdened them all with taxes, <br>Raped and pillaged, and then he'd kill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The women held in the Castle Keep<br>Were set to work, and raped, <br>They scrubbed in the kitchen galley, cooked<br>The food, and cleaned the grate, <br>Two of their number were trusted to<br>Go out in the misty marsh, <br>Collecting the herbs and mushrooms for<br>The Captain of the Guard.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Aethelflaed had been pregnant with<br>Fitzherbert's only son, <br>She came to term in the August and<br>She hated everyone: <br>‘The boy's as good as a Norman, I'm<br>The wife of a Saxon squire, '<br>She wept, and then she had strangled it, <br>Throwing it in the fire! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fitzherbert ranted all day long, <br>Lamenting what she'd done, <br>‘I should have known that a Saxon whore's<br>Not fit to bear my son! '<br>He stripped and flayed ‘til the flesh had peeled, <br>‘Til he thought that his arm would tire, <br>Then dragged her over the hearth, and placed<br>Her hands in the blazing fire! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">They hung her naked from a tree<br>As the villagers came to wail, <br>Then rode and murdered her husband there<br>In the village of Amber Vale, <br>The women held in the Castle wept<br>At the Normans' cruelty, <br>They'd whisper: ‘That was Aethelflaed, <br>But it might as well be me! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Baron held a feast that night<br>And they drank of their Norman wine, <br>From casks brought in from Normandy<br>But opened before they dined, <br>By midnight they were vomiting<br>Were helpless, caught in a trance, <br>From the berries of deadly nightshade squeezed<br>As the women began to dance.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They lopped off every soldier's head<br>As they lay, none thought it harsh, <br>Then they bound and carried the Baron out<br>And thrust him into the marsh, <br>With an apple jammed in his gaping jaw<br>And his glaring eyes so big, <br>He sank ‘til his head was all they saw<br>Like the head of a slaughtered pig.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The trees at Amber Vale were hung<br>With a strange but exotic fruit, <br>The heads of the soldiers hanging there<br>With their coats of mail, to suit, <br>They stormed the Castle and burnt it down<br>The ruins would make you quail, <br>For Belladonna is nurtured there<br>By the village of Amber Vale! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">2 September 2012</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=David+Lewis+Paget">David Lewis Paget</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365901" data-title="The Castle in the Marsh de David Lewis Paget" data-description="The Castle out in the marshes ruled
The serfs with an iron rod, 
The yeomen, hidden in cottages, 
Were careful where they trod, 
The soldiers poured from the Castle walls
And rode the peasants down, 
They stole the women they caught abroad
And ret..."></div>
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