A Fable for Feasters
In England, long before that royal Mormon King Henry VIII found out that monks were quacks, And took their lands and money from the poor men, And brought their abbeys tumbling at their backs, There was a village founded by some Norman Who levied on all travelers his tax; Nearby this hamlet was a monastary Inhabited by a band of friars merry.
They were possessors of rich lands and wide, An orchard, and a vineyard, and a dairy; Whenever some old villainous baron died, He added to their hoards—a deed which ne’er he Had done before—their fortune multiplied, As if they had been kept by a kind fairy. Alas! no fairy visited their host, Oh, no; much worse than that, they had a ghost.
Some wicked and heretical old sinner Perhaps, who had been walled up for his crimes; At any rate, he sometimes came to dinner, Whene’er the monks were having merry times. He stole the fatter cows and left the thinner To furnish all the milk—upset the chimes, And once he set the prior on the steeple, To the astonishment of all the people.
When Christmas time was near the Abbot vowed They’d eat their meal from ghosts and phantoms free, The fiend must stay home—no ghosts allowed At this exclusive feast. From over sea He purchased at his own expense a crowd Of relics from a Spanish saint—said he: “If ghosts come uninvited, then, of course, I’ll be compelled to keep them off by force.”
He drenched the gown he wore with holy water, The turkeys, capons, boars, they were to eat, He even soakt the uncomplaining porter Who stood outside the door from head to feet. To make a rather lengthy story