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The Battle of Brigid's Bog
In shade of night the banner rose
And flew before the dawn
The smoldering smoke from soldiers fires
Disturbed a feeding fawn
In dewy damp and clink of mail
The camp began to stir
Messenger pigeons burst to flight
With noisy wing-ed whir
The banner’s argent pig stood bright
Against the sable field
Proclaiming to the foemen’s eyes
MacMucc would never yield
The foemen's ranks, in Norman style
By armored horse were led
And many a man in both those ranks
Would wish he’d stayed in bed
MacMucc called his leftenents
To gather in his tent
By the grimness of their features.
A fearsome mood was lent
“Well Brothers, we have fought our fight
And this day we shall die”
Thus Og MacMucc said to those men,
While swatting at a fly
“For freedom’s ring and profit’s clink
We started up this war
We’ve watched our friends and next of kin
Transformed to bloody gore
“Our homes are burnt, our crops are gone
Our families have fled
And surely when this day is o’er
We’ll all be laying dead.
“For honor’s sake and faith’s good cause
We never will submit
To foreign rule on this green soil
We’ll never budge a bit
“We owe their swords a bloody day
We owe their spears a fight
So let us not go down to death
While this day there is light
“This place we stand is solid ground
Around us is the bog
They’ll not use their archers much
For fear the mucking fog
“So like the pig upon our flag
We’ll wallow in the mud
And make the bastards come to us
And here we’ll spill their blood”
While Og was stirring up his men
The enemy did meet
To plan the way they should attack
Across that soggy peat
Sir William Henry Walston
Sat astride his steed
And calculated in his head
How best to do the deed
He thought he knew the place where
His target was ensconced
And where that damn-ed Og MacMucc,
In infamy, did haunt
Through misty veils he sometimes saw
The banner of his foe
That argent pig on sable field
That caused him so much woe
He had no taste for Irish bogs
And neither did his men
But Og MacMucc was mud-bound there
So fight he would again
Those damned wild Irishmen
Were fin’ly out of luck
He’d chased him to his final hole
That wily Og MacMucc
Sir William Henry Walston rode
Before his line of troops
He’d fed them well the night before
On beef and barley soup
Their swords were sharp, their armor gleamed
The archers were in place
The armored horse and infantry
Were grim of hand and face
Now between the lines of warriors
A simple cottage lay
Made of sticks and weathered stone
And thatched with turf and hay
Brigid NÃMurray lived alone
Upon that wretched bog
For company she kept a cow
And two decrepit hogs
An older woman, Brigid was
The years had been unkind
Her hearing and her sight were bad
So was, some said, her mind
She rose, that morn, to milk the cow
And slop the crippled pigs
For noble fights and politics
She did'na give a fig
She rarely saw another soul
And she was just as glad
They usually caused her grief somehow
And always made her mad
Now seeing as the mist was thick and
Her ears and eyes were dull,
No wonder then, she never saw
The English on the hill
MacMucc was deeper in the bog
And faced another way
She saw not him, nor saw he her
That bloody foggy day
Sir William Henry Walston
Peering through the fog
Saw only demons in the mist:
Wild Irish in the bog.
Sir William knew MacMucc quite well
They’d fought for nigh a year
MacMucc knew Walston well enough
To fill his head with fear
But neither man knew Brigid well
Or knew her wretched hogs
Or neither one would e’er have dared
To trespass in that bog
Sir William sent his troops around
To take MacMucc’s left flank
The moment that their feet hit bog
The ground beneath them sank
They scrambled back to solid ground
To make another try
Sir William tried to calculate
Just where good footing lie
He saw what seemed a pile of stones
(Grass growing on the top)
And thought,”that must be solid ground
And not the damn-ed muck”
He sent a troop through single file
To sneak up on his foe
He never saw those men again
Nor heard their tale of woe
They made toward the pile of stones
A hundred feet ahead
The mist was thick, the ground was soft
They wished they’d stayed in bed
As they got up the pile of stones
T’was an apparition there
A bean sÃdhe like the Irish feared
Came out of mist-thick air
A mantle of a ragged sort
Was draped about her head
Tangled locks of draggled gray
Belonged upon the dead
Her hunch-ed back and scrawny arms
Put fear into their heart
But t’was the look t’was in her eye
That gave them all a start
Brigid NÃMurray look-ed up
And stared at their lead man
Her rheumy eyes unfocused
Her anger did he fan
She screamed at him in Gaelic
To go the hell away
She pointed off into the mist
The soldiers didn’t stay
The soldiers heard the bean sÃdhe scream
Saw the wild look she gave
Saw her point into the mist and
Thought them of open graves
They looked at the way she pointed
T’was at MacMucc’s left flank
The vision, sure, was one of death
Their hearts just up and sank
Ran they, screaming, into the mist
T’other way around
Sir William Henry Walston
Not one of them e’er found
But the screaming and the running
That made a sound he heard
It got MacMucc’s attention too
T’was Sir William that he feared
“Seamus, take you your troop of men
And head off in that way”
I’ll not let Sir William sneak
Upon my flank this day
Now, Seamus’ troop were used to bogs
They knew their ins and outs
They crept along most quietly
Following English shouts
Then right before their eyes there was
A hag of fearsome mien
She screamed at them to go away
A vision did it seem
She looked the part of MórrÃgan
That ancient crow of war
They dropped their swords and ran away
A troop of men three score
Now the screaming and the running
Of men out in the mist
Sounded a-like a battle sure
Sir William balled his fist
His horse were useless in the bog
So infantry again
He sent into the foggy gray
The battle for to win
In recklessness of battle lust
And ignorance of bog
They paid no heed to where they stepped
Within that mucking fog
Full two score swords were sinking fast
Full two score more were lost
They hacked at bushes and at stones
Shadows did they accost
Sir William heard the battle din
And so did Og MacMucc
Neither knew which side would win
And cursed the other’s luck
Now Brigid heard the sounds about
A-mucking in the fog
And worried that the men she’d seen
Might try to steal her hogs
Now years before, she’d had a man
A sometime soldier he
In battle with the English once
A musket did he see
He’d quick relieved the owner of
The burden that he bore
(And also of this earthly life
It was, remember, war)
He’d died and left her years ago
But left her with the gun
Now she thought she knew the way
To make trespassers run
She got the musket from the loft
(T’was twice as tall as she)
She got some powder and some salt
Her face lit up with glee
She got a stick to lean it on,
And a lantern for a light
And scuttled out into her yard
She’d give those men a fight
Sir William and old Og MacMucc
Had sent more soldiers in
Now half their soldiers had each sent
To guarantee the win
As yet no single Irishman
An Englishman had seen
Yet every soldier on that field
Could hear the battle screams
The soldiers followed after sound
What other way to guide?
The sounds were every which-a-way
So the soldiers spread out wide
The Irish found some Irish mates
A-cowering in the bog
“We’ve seen the bean sÃdhe, save our souls,
A-screaming in the fog”
The story brought a tinge of fear
To every kearn there stood
Against the sidhe of that strange bog
Would swords do any good?
The English came on one their men
A-sitting up in a tree
“Fight Irish beggars all you like
But not that damned Fairy”
The run of rumor in that bog
Spread from ear to ear
The story grew each time ‘twas told
So did the trembling fear
The mist was low, they could see o’er
If up a tree they climbed
Thus did the English, Irish both
Each at a diff’rent time
Both saw that stony pile stick out
Thatch growing on its top
And thought they might see better
If that was their next stop
They came from different corners
Into old Brigid’s yard
She screamed at them with all her might
Then pulled that trigger hard
The gun was none too clean that day
‘T’was rusty near the front
She’d packed just too much powder in
She’d never tried to hunt
The gun went every which-way
In a wondrous flash of light
The sound it made was horrible
And gave those men a fright
The salt was scattered in the air
At high velocity
It struck their flanks and faces hard
And made them want to flee
Then from that flash, that cloud of smoke,
That woman did appear
And in those hardened, seasoned troops
Their hearts just turned to fear
The screaming and the running and
The throwing down of arms
Told Sir William and MacMucc
Their troops had come to harm
They told their troops to run that way
So run that way they did
They met their own troops coming back...
Most rapidly they did
The rout, it spread to every man
Who fought on either side
They ran away from battle there
They scattered far and wide
Sir William and old Og MacMucc
Stood in their camps alone
Then seeing that as useless
They each set out for home
There’s battles long and battles great
And others fought in fog
But none can match the terror felt
At the Battle of Brigid’s bog
