The Lammas Hireling Flashcards
verall
Passion, sin, guilt
Title: Lammas — harvest festival celebrated in England. Hireling — a person part-time employed to do menial work during the harvest season.
Tone: 1st POV, at first jolly but quickly turns macabre. Seemed like a monologue or narrative at first, but the last lines reveal that he is speaking to a priest — reader is the priest. Descriptions are meant to be ambiguous and twisty — creating a mysterious atmosphere.
Summary: A farmer hires a young man as his hireling for cheap, who seems to be a good omen as his harvest/produce quickly become plentiful. There are connotations of him pursuing the boy romantically. But one night, after being woken up by a nightmare, he wakes up to see the boy practising dark magic. He quickly kills the boy, who turns into a hare — Irish folklore has it that witches/warlocks die and turn into a hare. The experience seems to shock the farmer, and as his luck turns bad again, he seems to be between a dead state and living, like in a limbo. He confesses his sins to try and salvage his life, but does not tell us the full story.
Structure: Dramatic monologue!!!! Stanzas of 6 lines, caesura (1st stanza signals volta, listing builds anticipation) and enjambment create tension. Strong structure.
Themes: Liminality, witchcraft/magic, surrealism
Devices used: contrasts (light/heavy — pun too), alliteration and sibilance,, references to Irish folklore, Intertextuality (Annals of Pursuit, muckle sorrow part), repetition, Christian allegory, metaphor (small hour),
After the fair, I’d still a light heart
and a heavy purse, he struck so cheap.
And cattle doted on him: in his time
mine only dropped heifers, fat as cream.
Yields doubled. I grew fond of company
that knew when to shut up. Then one night,
‘He struck so cheap’
-Focus is on the price of the work
‘Cattle doted on him’
‘Doted’ - liking towards something
Magical and mystical liking/enchantment of sorts
‘Yields doubled.’
End stopped line - emphasis
Unnatural / Supernatural power / true or just a story
‘ I grew fond of company that knew when to shut up’
“Fond” - physical attraction
“Shut up” - aggressive
Caesura - very odd / shut up / violent imperative / quiet and peace
Change of tone
Idea of repression and unwillingness to speak about his feelings
Enjambment
-Flowing line / anticipation of the story that is to come
disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife,
I hunted down her torn voice to his pale form.
Stock-still in the light from the dark lantern,
stark-naked but for one bloody boot of fox-trap,
I knew him a warlock, a cow with leather horns.
To go into the hare gets you muckle sorrow,
Disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife,
/d/ - alliteration emphasises the disruption
Dreams - connotations of the supernatural
“Disturbed” - guilt for hireling / guilt for killing / missing
Late wife - dead already / The speaker could have killed her or he could just miss her
Dear - affection
I hunted down her torn voice to his pale form.
Hunted down - violence / predator prey dynamic
Torn voice - woken up and hallucinating
Pale - dead and lifeless
stark-naked but for one bloody boot of fox-trap,
Stark-naked - huge contrast and abnormal almost nonhuman / witchery and devilish
Fox-trap - magic and trickery / animalistic aligning
I knew him a warlock, a cow with leather horns.
Warlock - male witch
Cow - transformation / metamorphosis of sorts
Muckle / More ->
the wisdom runs, muckle care. I levelled
and blew the small hour through his heart.
The moon came out. By its yellow witness
I saw him fur over like a stone mossing.
His lovely head thinned. His top lip gathered.
His eyes rose like bread. I carried him
‘Blew the small hour through his heart.’
Heart - desire / removing illicit desire
‘Moon’
Superstition and bearing witness - personification / also the only person to vouch / sounds like a crime
‘I saw him fur over like a stone mossing’
Fur - creature and transformation
Smilie - natural like transformation / mossing natural or super natural
‘His … His … His’ -> anaphora highlights intense focus on hireling’s body
Love / eyes / rose / lips
-Sexual undertones / possible repression
-Sinful action / may be why he kills and also kills his wife and also repenting for sin / Blames the hireling for making him sinful
“Rose like bread” - good connotations for success
in a sack that grew lighter at every step
and dropped him from a bridge. There was no
splash. Now my herd’s elf-shot. I don’t dream
but spend my nights casting ball from half-crowns
and my days here. Bless me Father for I have sinned.
It has been an hour since my last confession.
‘Grew lighter at every step’
Magical / slowly disappearing
‘There was no
splash. ‘
Line separation - causes a pause from the drop
-Supernatural / weightless / witchcraft and superstition / used to justify actions ?
‘Now my herd’s elf-shot’
Elf <-> Warlock / herd is frozen with the disappearance of the hireling / may be doing this to avoid guilt
‘Bless me Father for I have sinned.
It has been an hour since my last confession.’
I have sinned - ambiguity of sin
My last confession (It has been an hour) - ambiguity of time / could be continuously repenting because of the immense amount of guilty / continuously doing bad actions / just repented
Elaborate lie
Seems as though the persona is speaking to us the reader as a priest
