least.

’Twas tending fast to the evening tide
   And the sun to the earth did haste,
Yet he seized the first dish at the supper board
   Ere the Abbot could get a taste.

Full fifteen monks he knock’d down when
   No pottage he espied,
And up he hung fifteen because
   The herrings were not fried.

Then out and spoke the little boy
   Who waited at the meal:
“Each time the monk to the cloister comes
   He thus with us will deal.”

And it was getting late at night
   And folks to bed should hie,
Then because the Abbot sat too long
   He struck him out an eye.

The Abbot hurried off to bed,
   No longer dared remain;
I say to ye for verity
   He felt both shame and pain.

’Twas early in the morning tide,
   The bells began to ring;
It was the monk of the shaven crown
   Would neither read nor sing.

So stately strode he up the choir
   Where the monks and nuns they stand,
Not one of them dared read or sing
   For fear of his stalwart hand.

So they the Abbot pious and good
   To a simple monk debased,
And they the Monk of the shaven crown
   As Abbot o’er them placed.

And he the cloister held with might
   Till thirty years were flown;
Then died as Abbot in mighty fame,
   The Monk of the shaven crown.

THE CRUEL STEP-DAME

My father up of the country rode,
   He thought to wed a lovely rose;
And there he met a laidly wife,
   The source was she of all my woes.

The first night they together slept
   She seemed to me a mother mild,
But ere a second night was past
   She prov’d a step-dame fierce and wild.

I sat beside my father’s board,
   I sported there with hound and pup,
And then to blast my blissful lot
   My step-dame wild came striding up.

That God should make my lot so blest
   My wicked step-dame could not bear;
She changed me to a sword so keen,
   And bade me far and wide to fare.

By day I grac’d the side of the knight,
   I hung the hero’s heart so near;
At night I lay beneath his head,
   For his good sword he loved so dear.

That God had made my lot so blest
   My wicked step-dame could not bear;
She changed me to a little knife,
   And bade me far and wide to fare.

By day I was in the Lady’s hand,
   The linen white with me she cut;
At night within her bower I slept,
   All in her golden casket put.

That God had made my lot so blest,
   My wicked step-dame could not bear;
She changed me to a little hind,
   And bade me wander far and near.

She changed me to a little hind,
   And bade me wander far and near;
My seven maids to wolves she changed,
   And fiercely urged them me to tear.

My seven maidens were so kind,
   They all refus’d the hind to tear;
Then vexed was my step-mother wild
   That God had made my lot so fair.

The young Sir Henrik serves at court,
   He is a knight of handsome mien;
For me