Irish Dancing

My mother says they flogged the floor till dawn
before they went to work in the field of flax
they danced the night away to the fairy tune
no drink no sex no vulgarity in their world
they danced and drank sweet black tay
before laboring in dawn light next day
My mother says when she was a little girl
she gathering a bunch a kittens in her apron
and brought them up to the cottage door
till granny heard the fierce whistling of mother
and shouted at her to drop them immediately
were no domestic kitten at all but the newborn
young of a mother weasel who was about to bite

The bigger animals were gone now the wolf
the bear the cat and what was left was small
the badger the weasel and fox and the stoat
who walked in fields were corncrake sang out