The Pendle Pendulum

The Pendle Pendulum

Thank you Lord, for this sudden
And wonderful discovery.

Wild and lawless,
With distorted faces and bewitching eyes,

Sucked by the Devil,
Too long those recusants poluted our land

With bad blood, theft, violence and sexual laxity;
Churchless christians

Who honour tradition
Without much understanding.

Devils’ clay toys, clandestine mass goers,
Revengeful for having to pay

Meat, the gold of their fate,
For protection or other fabricated trespass;

All their hopes gone to Potts.
Our soil has suffered their marked bodies enough.

Judged and weighted, purged
With shining efficiency and justice,

Nevermore will they lame us, maim us, scar or deface.
Fertile, our land will breed again.

Mr Law, so gracefully
Your name adds to this happy incident.

‘Place the Device on the table, let her speak,
Remove that screaming, coursing, odious witch.’

The child spoke and fated her mother.
Young Robinson followed her way

With new fabrications, ushered her
Into a grisly place to rot.

Her mother did hiss: ‘Come to our meeting,
Turn the spit to roast the stolen sheep,

And they will find you guilty.’
Lord, thank you for having Law and Device meet,

For their rashness with words,
And for the righteous judge, who did not yield

To doubt, the first sign of Devil’s work.
People in far away lands

Might have been mastering
Tea-brewing or neat handwriting

But they can be equally accused
Of slaughtering in their time.

Thank you, who at the bottom of the valley
Smirking, plays the time banjo.

Without this sudden miracle
We would not feed our families

On so meagre a schooling;
No tourists would ever come here.

Those star-crossed women, their ultimate goal
Was to fuel the heritage industry,

Fill local shops with witch-motif gifts
And Pendle Witches Brew beer

For day-trippers to knock back
As they wander down the Pendle Witch Trail.

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