Leslie Fish The Digwell Carol
It is the time of Digwell, now Summer's gone away.
People come from miles around to meet on Digwell day.
We all come here with mighty stones, with gravel, rocks, and sand,
Bring it here with oxcarts or with buckets in your hand.
Chorus:
Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground.
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down.
And bring you all your blighted crops and blighted beasts beside,
And coffins of this season's dead that of the blight have died.
Bring them to the mountain's top and fetch the boulders near,
'Tis fitting that the blighted dead should all be buried here.
So fetch the boulders, sand, and stones, and pile them deeply here.
We bury now the sorrows, sins, and bad luck of the year,
And when the mountain's higher by the mound we build today,
Then we shall feast and dance and sing this autumn night away.
For back in our forefathers' time, the devils ruled this land.
They made cruel wars and laws to rule the folks on every hand.
They spoiled the land and water, and they poisoned half the sky.
They cared for nothing but their power, though man and nature die.
In time the danger grew so fierce it threatened them as well,
And so they dug deep in the Earth and hid them safe in Hell.
They hoped to wait in comfort 'till the poisons wore away,
For then they could come out again and rule another day.
They hid themselves below the ground and left the people here,
Amid the blight that they had made and even they must fear,
But still the people stayed alive, and well they promised then
That all the devils hid in Hell would never rule again.
And so our fathers hunted 'til they found the secret gate,
And there they piled the boulders high above where devils wait,
And thus we've ever after done these many years and more,
So now our manmade mountain stands above their exit door.
Pile high, pile high, the devil's underground, oh,
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down
