McClennon Babies by Lizzy Hardingham

 

A wise old tale says these babies three

Were left on the moors for the wildlings to be

McLennon and McClennon and McClennon makes three

This begins the tale of McClennon babies

 

One dark December the winter winds did blow

Three starving children with no mother's milk to flow

With only beggars’ rags and no better to know

Frozen on the ground were McClennon babies

 

I tell the tale like my mother told me

And she from her mother before

Fables fade away like a whisper on the wind

And howling heard deep within the moor

 

As time remembers deep in Devon that night

Crying was silence by ashy grey sight

Ruby red spheres in the dazzling moonlight

Came to the rescue of McLennon babies

 

Crimson eyes and silken fur were gathered all around

To herald to beginning of a life of man and hound

Nowhere could a father or a mother be found

Thus began the raising of McClennon babies

 

I tell the tale like my mother told me

And she from her mother before

Fables fade away like a whisper on the wind

And howling heard deep within the moor

 

Days and weeks and years flew by in the company of beasts

No bakers bread or butchers’ bones or baptism of priest

In the ways of the wildings the McLennons did feast

But soon would come a turning for McClennon babies

 

From four legs to two, they must rise

They'll always have those crimson eyes

But the day it came when they strolled right into town

Mary McLennon didn't recognize her McClennon babies

 

I tell the tale like my mother told me

And she from her mother before

Fables fade away like a whisper on the wind

And howling heard deep within the moor