The Burning of Bridget Cleary

Gather 'round close and a tale I will tell, 

if you buy me a pint - a pint of the ale.

Wait for the sound of the Angelus bell.

When the ghosts in the stones would all start to wail.

 

If you listen they sing of a sinister time.

An antiquate age from the nursery rhymes.

When things to be feared and the spirits held sway, 

from a world that was only a mirror away.

 

The more that he drank, the more he recalled,

that the shadows had sang and danced on the wall.

The room spun around, and the voices they laughed,

on the night that he burned Bridget Cleary.

 

Is it your temper, or are you just mad?

Or is it too much of the whiskey you've had?

 

Bridget and Michael were married in May.

But this story begins at the end of her days.

All was not well when she wandered the hills.

His temper grew thin - They would argue for hours.

 

He would spout about changelings, witches, and elves.

People paid him no mind but wondered themselves.

He turned to the whiskey to drown out the chill.

On the fourth day of March - Bridget fell ill.

 

Is it your temper, or are you just mad? 

Or is it too much of the whiskey you've had?

 

Coming home drink he found Bridget in bed.

Her skin was so pale - his eyes bloodshot red.

Grabbed a stick from the fire and set her alight.

She danced at his feet, and wailed in the night.

 

It was two weeks before her body was found.

Alone in the bog, on the outskirts of town.

He waits at the grave of the witch that he burned,

and hopes for the day that his wife will return...

 

Is it your temper, or are you just mad?

Or is it too much of the whiskey you've had?

 

Are you a witch, or are you a fairy?

Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?