The Ballad of Thomas Tyne
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Adrian Grzegorz Poniatowski
The Ballad of Thomas Tyne
There was once a lovely girl in Lincolnshire,
her name was Margaret, as sweet as a flower.
Her heart was kind, her life was merry, she
loved mother and father and brother like any.
One day she went into the forest, to pick
a little berries, to gather a few mushroom s
for the family supper. And on her way she heard
a sad cry, and rushing she found an old woman
alone and desperate.
The woman asked, "Childe,
would ye be so kind, give a poor woman drink
from cool and flowing stream?" Margaret did
say, "O lady, wait no longer! Drink from skin
that swings about my side." So the girl gave
the woman cool drink to satisfy deep thirst,
but for this charity she was with trechary
repaid, for the woman was not born of mother,
but was demon in disguise. The witch snatched
poor Margaret, screaming betwixt trees, bound
her with enormous strength, and disappeared
into lair close-by. There, the witch did wish
to see the child suffer, before she ghost released,
so the witch with infernal suprise, did devise
three tortures to end her life.
"Now you are
in my power, little one. No one can aid you
in your flight. Only I can release you back
to longing home, if you complete but minor task."
At this, the child's ear pricked up, "Oh what?
Oh what should I do to gain such favor, to
return to mother, father, and my brother?"
Thereupon the witch took from rags a satchel,
searched it and opened pouch. From this a powder
as white snow spilled out upon the ground.
"These are two crystals bound in one: take
each and divide without error. If you shall
do as I command, tonight you shall return
without harm. But if you fail, or foul this
with dirt, add or subtract iota therefrom,
finish you appointed task after sunfall,
I shall cut hand from you and crush a bone."
With this, she disappeared to hunt some more.
Poor Margaret fell to ground, looking at the
pile, and she despaired and cried, saying:
"Look at this! This is but dust that is the same!
She lies, she must, for this is her design,
to bring me to my doom through torment and
home's desire. O God, be just, let your mercy
be upon me! Let not this devil have her way!"
And God hear the child's cry, the Lord had
pity upon His little one, and appointed angel
one of His, a man called Thomas Tyne. That very
day he set out from city with his wares, carrying
his art so very far away, and while passing he
heard poor Margaret's cry, and hastened on his way.
He found the child, curled in a ball, softly
crying now, and said, "Dear child, come out!
I'm old doctor Thomas Tyne."
The child was at first
scared, saying, "You are witch! You are lying
form, designed to trick me, destroy me before
day is gone!" But Thomas spoke, "No, my child,
I am from Lincolnshire, called by King to his
academy in London. I was on my way when I heard
dread screams of lost child. There, in the east
is the road and my horse. I shall deliver you
to the house you are from." Then arising, the
child more trusting, took the hand of Thomas
and went, but no more than a fathom did she go,
her hand slipped from Thomas' lame. "I cannot
go further, my limbs disobey!" And Thomas saw
and said, "It must be witch's spell that does
these wonders! She must break the bond she
established between you and lair." Margaret
spoke, returning to the lair, "She bade me
separate this powder, white as snow, into
two crystals without fail, or else she will
cut my hand and crush a bone!"
Thomas took
the powder in his hand, examined it with
interest, then said, "Child, let me pluck
this thing apart. But not by hand, but by
air I shall accomplish this." So he took
the powder and mixed it with a liquid,
and began painting chromatograms
with the water. Margaret looked at this
new wonder, seeing color come where
there was none: "Sir, you either angel
are, or other strange being of the forest!"
Then Thomas said, "No my child, I am
mere servant of the Lord, a disciple
of Nature. There is yet we have to know,
colors unseen, that come about from clarity."
Then he placed the mixture in a little pipe,
and blowing hard he dripped it one by one.
He cooked the drops over fire, and at last
he had fourteen little piles of white where
there was once one. Combining the first
seven, and the last seven into two piles,
he spoke: "Now, Margaret, present these
pristine piles to the witch. Tonight for sure
you will be whole and free again." So he
left her, hour before sunset, but went not
on his way, for a whisper of his conscience
told him the demon would break not bone
but word, and keep poor Margaret in pain.
So he hid amidst the brambles, concealed
well his wares and put the mare to slumber,
and peered upon the lair to see the demon's
treachery.
The witch came back empty-handed,
and dread bloodthirst shone in her pits of eyes,
like the tongues of hell lapping the damned.
She sought consolation in the thought the girl
would fail and suffer, but when she came into
the hole, she found Margaret standing with two
piles. The girl with tired eyes said, "Here you go,
one crystal pure in left, the other in my right.
Two keys, as you did promise, to let me go
whole and free home." The witch in disbelief
looked upon the piles, taking one and then
the other, stared at her in wonder. "Not one
has yet survived this test," she thought, "she
sought and found the aid of someone I don't
know." And in her heart she did conspire to
lure the angel that saved poor Margaret, kill
two for price of one and whet her dark greed.
So the witch said, "My dear, you must have
employed wise skill and industry to divide
the two without error. Come, take my hand,
I will let you go." Unsure, Margaret took the
witch's hand, but going away from the lair,
again she froze mere fathom from the prison,
unable to take another step.
“What, o child,”
the witch said with a grin, “you wish to stay
a little longer? Or is it your body is too frail
to move another step?” This time the paroxysm
&n
bsp; took even Margaret’s speech, so she was silent
as the witch took a vial from her bosom.
“This elixir will cure your mute tongue, life
again infuse in your limbs. Take it, and return,
drink the medicine to the last drop. But beware,
half is health and half is death: these, then, you
must separate again.” And poor Maragaret,
unable to speak a word, came back to the hole
while the demon disappeared to prey on the
beings of the night.
No cry was heard this time,
just silent tear glistened on the girl’s cheek,
and Thomas knew all he had to do. From bush
he arose, cautious for his life, for he knew the
demon hatched some plot, to take the girl and
him as well to their graves. He took the vile,
and told the child: “Behold, these I shall separate
by fire.” Then he took a fife and round flask,
added bottom to a fire, and let the whole boil,
till the vapors dripped into a goblet, then another,
according to their rising. Thomas wafted one
that smelt of rotting flesh, and the other as a
pleasant scent. The sweet smelling one he threw
away, and upon touching flower turned it grey,
and the second he beckoned Margaret drink.
He held her, though she thought the foul water
held her final drink, Thomas urged her, and
she felt her tongue move again. “Awful!” she said,
“But blessed are you, Thomas Tyne. Now I am
sure you are God’s justice and wrath for her.”
Thomas Tyne said, “O Margaret, the justice
is not yet accomplished, she lurks still about.
And I doubt you will be able to pass beyond
the fathom-reach. Go again, and try.” But she failed.
“Now I must devise another way for her to break
the bond that holds you fast. I fear it be a dreadful
thing, but I must send her back from whence she came.
No power on earth shall inspire in her charity, she
fears no justice, thinking she is so clever. Stand
where you lose your power, while I hunt the hunter.
When you feel you hand move again, run home,
and thank the Lord your Savior.” She nodded in
assent, and Thomas disappeared into the night.
Thomas took to his wares, opened the chest,
and took his own portion of watery poison.
Close to heart he hid the weapon, liquid fire,
and strode unheard through the wood. He knew
not where to find the witch, what her ways were
in the night, if the shadows gave her strange power
to show her true form and being. But in right hand
he held his scapular, in left his clutched the vial,
till the night-sky wheeled round and the dawn
was rising in the east with prophesying color:
by then he wandered to the edge of wood, where
he saw a figure moving slowly, holding killed
chicken in her claw. He hid, and the witch looked
back at the village arising from slumber, the little
children going out to field and meadow to do
their daily chores. What hath transpired in her mind
Thomas knew not, but the witch sat and began to cry.
“Now is the time,” he thought in his mind, and
he poured the vial’s content into bottle. He went
onto the wood-road, and saw the witch, still wailing,
sitting in the brambles on some odd stuff-pile.
“Well, you could be my mother, poor woman!
Why do you cry so, and wake the dead from slumber?”
“O, good sir,” the witch replied, “be kind and give
assistance, to tired distraught widow. So long
denied my dower, I was forced to roam the lands,
water and herb alone sustain me. Give, kind sir,
a drink of water to vagabond, to exile, and I shall
tire ye no more.”
Then Thomas drew the bottle,
offered it with smile, “Have your fill and live,
poor woman.” She drank with awesome thirst
to the last the deadly brew, for though it like
water tasted first, in instant it turned to eating
acid, which mixed and churned, broke the walls
of stomach and throat. In frightful yell, like few
there were before and after, the body of the witch
burned, bubbled, and melted before his eyes,
but he looked away from the horror, lest the
apparition haunt him. When this was done,
little Margaret twitched finger first, then hand,
then putting foot before foot she ran the league
home within a quadrant.
Her mother, father,
her brother held the child close, the child
once lost and found again. Heaven so rejoiced
that the dawn broke with golden vigor, to gild
the fields and timber walls with precious glow.
And in the distance, to the east, where the road
leads far away from Lincolnshire, stood old
Thomas Tyne to collect his mare and wares,
and off he rode, to happy life and service.