This one is going to take a bit of explaining.
You might or might not be familiar with the Christmas carol Past Three A Clock (and a cold frosty morning…) If you are, apologies for the earworm. If not, here’s a video. The tune and the chorus are traditional. The verses, however, were added on at a later date by G. R. Woodward and, while they’re a lovely bit of poetry, I’m not sure that I’d have put some of them quite in the following order.
Hinds o’er the pearly
dewy lawn early
seek the high stranger
laid in the manger.
(Past three a clock, etc)
Cheese from the dairy
bring they for Mary,
And, not for money,
butter and honey…
I assume that the ‘they’ is meant to refer to the dairy workers, perhaps before they get caught up in the Twelve Days of Christmas, but the way it’s written it does look rather like it’s the hinds.
Which when we copped onto this last year meant two things. Firstly, stealing the deer from the royal ice skating Playmobil scene and ordering some Playmobil cheese for them. And secondly, a bred lik poem:
My name is dere
and wen it dawn
and wen the baby
Saviour born
and all the humans
on ther nees
I join them ther
with stolen chees.
Kathleen Jowitt 