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The Changling
Mary's mother is tall and fair,
Her father is freckled with ginger hair
And they live in a house all polished and neat
In the very centre of Riverside Street.
But Mary is dark and thin and wild,
And she doesn't laugh like a human child,
And she doesn't cry like you and me
With tears as salt as the brooding sea.
For when Mary giggles, the rattling sound
Is worse than the traffic for miles around,
And the sobs that heave Mary's shoulders high,
Leave her throat parched and her eyes wide dry.
In the classroom Mary works on her own,
And she plays in the playground quite alone.
In church she will not pray or sing,
For she never joins in anything.
It can only be that ten years ago,
In hurtling sleet and blinding snow,
Some dreaming wizard or spiteful elves
Went cradle swapping to please themselves.
Took the real Mary to join their race,
And left their fledgling in her place.
To grow both beautiful and sly
With the power to destroy in her evil eye.
And the only thing both Mary's share
Is that they are homesick everywhere.
So sumptiously by the fairies fed
The one is hungry for human bread.
The other however, the heat's turned higher
Is cold for the lack of fairy fire.
And the parents cannot know what is meant
By their daughter's waspish discontent.
Her sulks and tempers are never done,
She's a stock of harsh words for everyone;
While they, dismayed by their puzzling fate
Go to bed early and get up late.
So now the mother is bent and grey,
And the father sits in his chair all day,
And Riverside Street cannot abide
The slum that their house has become inside.
Shirley Toulson
If there be a general mist before sunrise near the full of the moon, the weather will be fine for some days. -
R. Inwards, "Weather Lore".
The sorcerer's name in Disney's Fantasia is Yensid, which happens to be Disney backwards.
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