An early ballad by Helen Adam: “The Shoe Song”

Richard Owens has provided us with the transcribed text of Helen Adam’s “The Shoe Song,” which was collected in the book titled The Elfin Pedlar. He also shared with us a photograph of the book’s title page. Richard adds this note:

“Marjory, within the frame of the suite, is not the Witch’s daughter but the granddaughter of a woman telling the tale of the witch’s daughter to her grandchildren, though here Marjory is the child most captivated by the tale. The narrative is pretty complex and though The Elfin Pedlar was published when Adam was fourteen, this suite of poems was evidently composed between the ages of eight and ten.”

Helen Adam, “The Shoe Song”

When the sun’s behind the heather,
She who wears the shoes of blue, 
Shall dance and dance for ever
Over fields all touched with dew. 

Where the drowsy poppies bend
She shall dance through shine and shade
Until she reaches world’s end,
There to rest in fairy glade. 

Poor Marjory fain would linger
Among the mosses cool, 
But no, the shoe went dancing on
Past many a gleaming pool,
Until at last, when all the sky
Was red with sunset’s glow,
She sank beneath an ancient tree,
All white with fairy snow.
(Fairy snow is a blossom white
That grows on oak trees tall, 
Where the old gray gnomes of the forest dark
Cradle their babies small.)
Marjory slept beneath it,
All through the dark night long,
While the baby elves, in their cradles white,
Sang her a gentle song.