Found in various Celtic tradition, these three perform a very specific laundry service.

(This is a poem for three voices.)

You’ve got a big day coming up, dear!
Dearie me, your wagging tongue! You always spoil the…
Spoilers? Ha! They never see it coming!

Well, never mind. Just leave it to us three
Us three,
Us three:
The washerwomen
Les Lavandieres

Bean-nighe

Washing… let’s call it your garment
Your suit, dear, for going away.
Smooth. Well done. Didn’t say shroud once!
SPOILERS! Oh, pay her no mind dear!

Who cares what some old women say?
Just you leave dirty laundry to us
To us,
To us:
We’ll make sure you’re looking your best on your special day.
Special day.
Special day.

The Malebête is a monstrous French bear known for his taste for pretty girls. Creep.

He was turned to stone by a priest, and can be found to this day, staring down from the church. It is apparently not a good idea to make eye contact.

I liked the pretty ones.
That sounds unsavoury.
Haven’t you found, though
It feels like the flavour is
Better, when food looks
Aesthetically pleasing?
You’ll pay more for pretty food:
There is no reason

That perfect potatoes
Should taste any better
But somehow they do.
And so if I could get her,
I’d eat a fair maiden
Or two, thee or four.
The villagers soon found this
Hard to ignore.

After an especially
Good-looking feast
My repose was disturbed
By a silver-haired priest.
Now, I do prefer girls,
but I’m very broad-minded
And I liked the way
That his little cross shined: it

Was oddly hypnotic
My heart gave a lurch
I leapt up and followed him
Right to his church.
At the very last minute,
He turned, and he tossed
His rosary beads round my neck
All was lost!

They turned me to stone
And to this day I’m glowering
Down at the village
From here, on the tower.
And seeing those sweet girls
I just cannot stand:
If I cannot have them,
Then nobody can.

Yes, I liked the pretty ones.
Think that I’m shallow?
Then you shouldn’t mind
Turning blotchy, and sallow.
Each girl who is caught
In my cold, stony stare
Will loses her good looks:
I’m a bitter old bear.

This is a poem for children, so it hasn’t got any swearing in it, even though it’s partially about bad language. It just has lots of gruesome threats of violence and death. You know, for the kiddies.

Bryce, age six
Said “&#% off!” to his mummy.
He heard it from his brother
And he thought it sounded funny.
Now poor little Brycey
Is dead and going rotten
He swore at his mummy
And Bloodybones got him!

Tameka, age eight
Called her sister “stinky pooface,”
There’s nothing left of her now
But one single shoelace
The rest has all been gobbled up
Not one bit saved for later.
She called her sister nasty names
And Bloodybones ate her!

Farukh would have been ten
In a week, but there’s no party:
He laughed at his Nanni
And he said she smelled all farty.
Out jumped Bloodybones
And swallowed him whole.
He was mean to his Nanni,
So he had to pay the toll.

He lives inside the cupboard
Just underneath the stairs
And if you say nasty things
He’ll catch you unawares
He sits on the bloody bones
Of kids who weren’t polite
And if you do the same,
He’ll eat you up in one bite.

I’m watching you. Watching you.
Not just in mirrors
(But always in mirrors),
In any reflection.
A window, your laptop
The screen you are reading
Right now. There. You see me?
Not quite, Not entirely.
That movement behind you,
Peripheral vision,
Your face, and then something
You can’t quite account for –
Perhaps you’ve imagined it…
That’s where I’m waiting.
And wouldn’t you like to
Be sure, to be certain
You’re not going crazy:
There really was something?
Don’t worry, it’s easy
You just have to call me.
You know that you want to,
You know that you’re wondering.
Just say my name. Say it over and over.
I’m here in the mirror
But you’ve got to call me
Or you’ll never know
And you know you like knowing,
So give it a try:
What’s the worst that could happen?
Just call me, just call me,
I’m waiting, I’m waiting.

It’s not easy being famous, you know.
Folk get jealous of you.
Even your family look at you differently
Say that you’re making a show of yourself.

Pretty soon they stop calling altogether.

No,
I’ve not heard from the old gang for oh,
must be centuries now.
Back in the old days, we used to meet up now and then:
Me and Lochy and Oich,
Out on the town
(Figure of speech, of course
the towns came later.
That’s when the trouble began.)

Look, when new neighbours move in
You say hello.
It’s only polite.
How was I to know they’d make such a big deal out of it?
The others kept well out of sight
Antisocial, the pair of them
Said I was loving the spotlight
I thought that was unfair of them
Still, I hope they’re both doing alright.
Lochy and Oich.

Do you know, there are films about me?
They make toys.
Used to be a cartoon.
Oich would have pissed herself laughing at that, if she’d known.
Lochy would not have approved.
She’d have said that it lowered the tone.
But they called it the Family Ness,
In that version I wasn’t alone.
Having family here,
That’s a lovely idea.
But instead, I am all on my own.

Or I would be.
If not for the boat tours
The film crews
The divers
The hikers
The gawpers
The stalkers
You try to make friends
Poke your head the out door the once or twice,
And suddenly
You’ve not a moment of peace
Maybe Lochy was right
It’s just not worth the price.

It’s not easy being famous.
The folks you grew up with
Start to give you a wide berth.
For all I that I hear from them now
I might as well be
The last dinosaur on earth.

This one was inspired by Victorian accounts of Spring-Heeled Jack Sightings. There does seem to be a correlation between the social class of the victim and how severely they were affected, ranging from “lawks!” to *permanent residence at the better class of asylum*.

A terrible figure’s been seen round the town
He’s a devilish gentleman, dressed all in black
Who leaps over buildings in one single bound
And the name of this curious cove? Spring-Heeled Jack

They say five young ladies were sent into fits
While travelling home from a masquerade ball
And it’s thought that they may not recover their wits
For they saw Spring-heeled Jack leaping over a wall.

And a housemaid in Kensington
saw him last night
Standing in the back garden, his eyes glowing red
She says that he gave her a terrible fright
And she really believed that he might strike her dead

Is he human or fiend? Is he fiction or fact?
Is his provenance not of this world, or mundane?
Why are servant girls left with their senses intact
While the upper-class ladies are driven insane?

If I happen to meet Spring-Heeled Jack, of a night,
I’m glad that I’m common, and not too well bred:
Just a nice cup of tea and I’ll soon be set right,
But if I were a toff, I might go off my head!

This is an alternative version of this song.  With thanks to Joe Williams for the dialect advice.

One Sunda morn ah chose to go
A-swimmin’ in the Wear;
An’ catched me lip upon a heuk
An it felt vary queer
But what a kind o’ heuk it was
Ah really cudden’ tell-
An’ before ah knah what’s gannin’ on
Av been hoyed doon a well

Whisht! lads, had yer gobs,
Ah’ll tell yez aall an aaful story,
Whisht! lads, had yer gobs,
Ah’ll tel ye ‘boot the worm.

Noo once I got me bearings theer
It really wasn’t bad.
Ah’d lodgings ah’d not have to sheer
An’ that made me quite glad
The gadge whe catched uz on his heuk
Ah never seen again
But I remembered how he looked
That ah might cause him pain.

Chorus

But ah got fat an’ grewed an’ grewed,
An’ grewed an aaful size;
Ah’d a great big mooth ah loved to fill
Aye, I ate aal the pies.
An’ when at neet ah craaled aboot
A seeking o’ me foe
Ah must admit ah had a bit
O’ snap alang the road

It’s true that ah would often see
That no cows went to waste-y
An’ swallah little bairns alive
In my defense, they’re tasty!
An’ when ah’d eaten aall ah cud
An’ I had had me fill,
Ah craaled away to sleep it off
Somewhere near Pensha Hill.

Chorus

Apparently, somebody told
My foe about me feast
But in a well, there’s nowt to eat!
Ye must see that, at least?
So hyem he came an’ found uz
Sleeping off aal that ah’d et
And chopped me in two pieces, ah’ve
Not found the other yet!

Chorus

So now ye know how ah was took
Out of me natural home
And dropped into a well from which
I had, perforce, to roam
So please remember this, Sir John
It’s you who did the harm
Neer cows nor bairns would have been et
If you’d not catched the worm.

Chorus

                                     

.        

        

                                 

        

                                                     

   

 

                      

It wasn’t a sheep of unusual shape,
And it won’t have been somebody’s dog who’d escaped.
That mysterious creature that made you all gape?
It was me.

It wasn’t a badger, it wasn’t a deer
It wasn’t a housecat, deceptively near;
Though the light was diminishing, that much was clear:
It was me.

And that sound you heard? More of a growl than a bleat
So wasn’t a goat: they’ve the wrong kind of feet.
It wasn’t a dressing gown, dropped in the street:
It was me.

These conspiracy theories do make me grieve:
Why is it such a challenge for you to believe
Your own eyes? My intention is not to deceive:
It was me.

But you won’t be convinced. I have realized that.
You’ll accept without question an otter or bat
But refuse to believe, when you see a big cat
That it’s me!

Don’t ride the wild ponies
That graze by the stream
No matter how tame
And how friendly they seem

With their long silky manes
And their soft, dappled coats,
For these creatures don’t feed
Upon apples or oats:

If you climb on their back
You will stick to their skin
They will leap in the water
And you’ll be dragged in

And when you are drowned
They will feast on your flesh
For they only eat meat
When it’s lovely and fresh

I know what you’re thinking:
No horse is carnivorous,
Nor are they generally
Known as amphibious.

The Kelpie’s no horse
It’s a whole other genus
A lookalike species
That’s not what it’s seen as.

So don’t ride the ponies
That prance by the brook.
There’s a lot of things out there
Less sweet than they look.

“Alright, what do you think we are dealing with, Sarge?”
“Oh, a nasty one. Con artist, murderer: Scourge
of the East, but intelligence thinks she’s at large

In this area, dodging us time and again.
She went by “Bakeneko”, way back, in Japan.
Current aliases and location unknown.

Profile: Bakeneko’s a demonic cat
And her fur’s mostly white, but you can’t go by that
Because she can change form and look humanoid, yet

Always still kind of feline. She feasts on the dead
She’s been known to possess people. Wears on her head
Bits of bright coloured cloth. Has a preference for red.

But the trail has gone cold. I was hoping we might
Get a break. But I don’t think it’s our lucky night
You know, this sort of criminal hides in plain sight.”

She’s laughing at us. She’s out there, sitting pretty.
And for all that we know, she’s all over this city
Wait. I’ve kind of a hunch. Could it be? …”