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From the bonny bells of heather
They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was
sweeter far than honey,
Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and
they drank it,
And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days
together
In their dwellings underground.
There rose a king in Scotland,
A fell man to his foes,
He smote the
Picts in battle,
He hunted them like roes.
Over miles of the red
mountain
He hunted as they fled,
And strewed the dwarfish bodies
Of the
dying and the dead.
Summer came in the country,
Red was the heather bell;
But the manner of
the brewing
Was none alive to tell.
In graves that were like
children's
On many a mountain head,
The Brewsters of the Heather
Lay
numbered with the dead.
The king in the red moorland
Rode on a summer's day;
And the bees
hummed, and the curlews
Cried beside the way.
The king rode, and was
angry,
Black was his brow and pale,
To rule in a land of heather
And
lack the Heather Ale.
It fortuned that his vassals,
Riding free on the heath,
Came on a stone
that was fallen
And vermin hid beneath.
Rudely plucked from their
hiding,
Never a word they spoke:
A son and his aged father -
Last of
the dwarfish folk.
The king sat high on his charger,
He looked on the little men;
And the
dwarfish and swarthy couple
Looked at the king again.
Down by the shore he
had them;
And there on the giddy brink -
"I will give you life, ye
vermin,
For the secret of the drink."
There stood the son and father
And they looked high and low;
The
heather was red around them,
The sea rumbled below.
And up and spoke the
father,
Shrill was his voice to hear:
"I have a word in private,
A word
for the royal ear.
"Life is dear to the aged,
And honour a little thing;
I would gladly
sell the secret,"
Quoth the Pict to the King.
His voice was small as a
sparrow's,
And shrill and wonderful clear:
"I would gladly sell my
secret,
Only my son I fear.
"For life is a little matter,
And death is nought to the young;
And I
dare not sell my honour
Under the eye of my son.
Take HIM, O king, and
bind him,
And cast him far in the deep;
And it's I will tell the
secret
That I have sworn to keep."
They took the son and bound him,
Neck and heels in a thong,
And a lad
took him and swung him,
And flung him far and strong,
And the sea
swallowed his body,
Like that of a child of ten; -
And there on the cliff
stood the father,
Last of the dwarfish men.
"True was the word I told you:
Only my son I feared;
For I doubt the
sapling courage
That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is the
torture,
Fire shall never avail:
Here dies in my bosom
The secret of
Heather Ale."
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13.02.2009 в 20:23-
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24.02.2009 в 15:08А я в книге по Шотландии отрывок вычитала)
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