Don't Anger The Faeries

As a wee lad, me gran used to say,
"Dinnae anger the old ones, or ye'd rue the day.
For the fae folk have been here, and here they are still,
living in the land, hidden in the hill.
If ye insult them, ye'd live with the fear
that something will happen, that ye'd disappear."

And as I grew older, I brushed off her words
as silly superstition, foolish and absurd.
For there never were sightings out there on the moor,
And we're all smarter men, not like before
To believe there are really folk of the sidhe,
living among us. That just cannot be.

Then came one night in the full of the moon,
when out in the heather, I acted the loon.
I had drunk too much whiskey and not believing my sight,
I thought I saw shadows in the dark of the night.

I shouted at them, disbelieved they were real,
called them all cowards unless they reveal
that they truly existed, were much more than tales
told on the moors, in the glens and the dales.

In the morning I found out on my door
carvings I'd never seen there before
But I knew what they were, heard of them I had,
sitting on gran's knee, when I was but a lad.

A warning I'd angered, by something I'd done
They would seek restitution; my time would soon come,
To pay for the words that rashly were spoken,
Promises once made, that never are broken.

Now deep in the night, I wonder if I will,
Become one of the people trapped in the hill.

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