I read a Yorkshire legend about a boggart and a farmer. Seems to me the boggart got a raw deal.
Don’t make fairy bargains
No, don’t take fairy gold
For fairies love to cheat you
Or that’s what you’ve been told
Those sneaky little goblins
And tricky little elves
They’re all of them dishonest
And nothing like yourselves.
Now there was once a farmer
Who lived upon my land
And though I’d been there longer
I offered friendship’s hand
I said I had no problem
With humans farming there
My only stipulation:
I had to have my share
Although he wasn’t happy
The farmer soon assented
A split of fifty-fifty:
The bargain was cemented
He asked me, would I rather
Take that which grows unseen
Or that which sprouts above the land?
I chose the first. I mean
He mostly grew potatoes
And barley, he’d explained
And baked potato’s sweeter
Than any pile of grain.
But then the lying bastard
Sowed every single field
With corn and wheat and barley
So stubble was my yield.
I can’t say I was happy
I thought it was a shame
But in the end, I was impressed
Game recognises game.
So I forgave the farmer
And once more chose my crop
Instead of what’s beneath the soil
I’d take what grows on top.
I should have known, it’s foolish
To make a deal with thieves:
Next year I had a harvest
Of damned potato leaves!
So don’t make fairy bargains
And I will tell you why
If you make one with humans
The cunts’ll bleed you dry.
Tom Juniper Poetry 