Linkinhorne

Over the centuries many children in Linkinhorne have learnt a poem starting with the words

 "At Linkinhorne where the devil was born"

I am told this version is by Charles Causley. However I have no idea how to contact him and trust that he will not mind this poem being shared.

At Linkinhorne

Where the devil was born

I met old mother Mac Nee. "Come in," she said

With a wag of her head

"For a cup of camomile tea."

And while the water whistled and winked

I gazed about the gloom

At all the treasures mother Mac Nee

Had up and down the room.

From the ceiling spangled
A crocodile dangled

All stained with curious dye,

And from tail to jaw it was stuffed with straw

 And emerald was its' eye.

In the farthest corner a grandfather clock

Gave a deep-sea tick and tock

As it told the date and the season and state

Of the tide at Falmouth Dock.

She'd a fire of peat

That smelled as sweet

As the wind from the moorland high,

And through the smoke

Of the chimney broke

A silver square of sky.

On the mantle shelf two pottery dogs

Gave half a smile and a frown,

And through a bottle glass pane there stood

The church tower upside-down.

She'd leather books,
And hanging on hooks

Were herbals all to hand,

And shells and stones

And animal bones

And bottles of coloured sand.

And sharp I saw the scritch-owl stare

From underneath the thatch,

As Matt her cat came through the door

With never a lifted latch.

At Linkinhorne

Where I was born

I met old mother Mac Nee,

She told me this

She told me that

About my family tree.

And oh we skipped and ah we sang

And laughed and danced did we.

For mother Mac Nee's the finest mother

Was ever given to me.