‘A tiny old woman with a small costan, or bramble-basket, on her back.’
Joan was too amazed to see a stranger at her door to ask what she wanted, and before she could get over her surprise, the little old woman had come into the cottage, stepped noiselessly to the hearthplace, unslung the costan, and laid it at her feet, singing as she did so a curious rhyme in a voice so wild and sweet, it reminded Joan, as she listened, which she did as one in a dream, of moor-birds’ music and rippling streams, and the voices of the Small People who lived among the carns. The rhyme was as follows:
‘I bring thee and leave thee my little mudgeskerry![7]
My dinky,[8] my dear!
Till the day of that year
When the spells shall be broken—
And this is the token—
By Magic and Pail
And the Skavarnak’s[9] wail,
My ninnie, my dinnie, my little mudgeskerry!