Tamsin

It is a thricecut coppice, Jenny, for all these seem virgin. Twice was it cut before my time, and once since, and each time saplings sprang from the stumps with speed uncanny. The old of these parts, they’ve a saying, ‘Fairy folk are in old oak,’ and a thrice-cut wood harbors Oakmen, always.

The boggart wasn’t fazed a bit. “Noo, I do like yer ma, I do like her fine-she’s a rare goodhussy, for an outlander, and pretty wi’ it. There’s bottom to en.” It took me the longest time to figure out that hussy just means a housewife in Dorset talk, and bottom’s like honor, integrity.

Oranges and cherries,
sweetest candleberries-
who will come and buy?
who will come and buy?
Daughters I have plenty,
ten and twelve and twenty,
fit to please the gentry-
who will come and buy?