3-101-386 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Robin Goodfellow, 1842. Illustrated poem. 'Whene'er such wanderers I meete, As from their night-sports they trudge home; With counterfeiting voice I greete And call them on, with me to roame Thro' woods, thro' lakes, Thro' bogs, thro' brakes; Or else, unseene, with them I go, All in the nicke To play some tricke And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho! Sometimes I meete them like a man; Sometimes, an ox, sometimes, a hound; And to a horse I turn me can; To trip and trot about them round. But if, to ride, My backe they stride, More swift than wind away I go, Ore hedge and lands, Thro' pools and ponds I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho! When lads and lasses merry be, With possets and with juncates fine; Unseene of all the company, I eat their cakes and sip their wine; And, to make sport, I snore and snort; And out the candles I do blow; The maids I kiss; They shrieke - Who's this? I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho! Yet now and then, the maids to please, At midnight I card up their wooll; And while they sleepe and take their ease, With wheel to threads their flax I pull. I grind at mill Their malt up still; I dress their hemp...And would me take, I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!' From "The Book of British Ballads, S. C. Hall (ed.) [London: Jeremiah How, 1842-1844] vol. I, p. 88.