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The Rowan

Violet Jacob

When the days were still as deith
And you couldna see the kye
Though ye’d maybe hear their breith
I’ the mist oot-by;
When I’d mind the lang grey een
O’ the warlock by the hill
And sit fleggit like a wean
Gin a whaup cried shrill;
Tho’ the hert wad dee in me
At the fitstep on the floor,
There was aye a rowan tree
Wi its airm across the door.

But that is far, far past
And a’thing’s just the same,
There’s a whisper up the blast
O’ a dreid I daurna name;
And the shilpit sun is thin,
Like an auld man deein’ slow
And a shade comes creepin’ in
When the fire is fa’in’ low;
Then I feel thae lang een set
Like a doom upon ma heid,
For the warlock’s livin’ yet—
But the rowan’s deid!


Violet Jacob

from The Northern Lights and other poems (John Murray, 1927), and included in Voices From Their Ain Countrie: the poems of Marion Angus and Violet Jacob (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2006) 

Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Violet Jacob.

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Scots supernatural
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Violet Jacob1863 - 1946

Violet Jacob, known for her novels of Scottish history and her poetry written in the rich dialect of Angus, was born into an aristocratic family, and lived her adult life as an officer’s wife in England and abroad.
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