Rising Sun: The Ballad of Bill Scarlet
Bill Scarlet was just seven years old
when he fell burning ill,
and lay in isolation at
the Fever Hospital.

One night it seemed he found himself
outside on Scaffold Hill:
some say he never left his ward,
some say he's wandering still.

Some say he thought he only dreamed
until he met a man
whose skin was smooth with mole's fur and
whose eye was big as a pan.

'My name is Fatkin and I stay
beneath you in the gloom,
if you'd be well, hear what I tell
and leave your red-hot room.

'The first thing that we ever know's
the gates that lead to air:
the first place that your soul must go's
through the hip-bones of a hare.

'The first face that you'll always know's
your mother's look of care:
go to the water deep and slow,
see what you're given there.'

Bill Scarlet went off wandering
till he came to a lake
where shoveller, tern, and teal and snipe
were nesting but awake.

The mother birds saw he was sick
and called out from the brink:
'Call up the water-rider, boy,
to see if you may drink.'

Young Billy cried out in the cold
to rushes dank and coarse,
and saw a blackness bubble, split,
release a dripping horse.

The closer that the black horse swam
the clearer he could see
it had a woman's face so fierce
he fell down on one knee.

It turned into a girl as soon
as she stepped on the land:
'My name's Epona, never fear,
I'm here to help you stand.'

She gave the boy a wooden cup
that brimmed with water, said,
'Don't drink or spill this till you're home,
or you will wake up dead.'

And then he was in darkness, lost
save for a tapping sound
he knew was Fatkin chipping coal
beneath the claggy ground.

So Billy followed Fatkin's pick
to where the roe deer walks:
beneath a birch he found a man
with eyes as big as clocks.

a wolf was tattooed on his chest,
an eagle on his cheek,
he looked Bill Scarlet up and down,
and then began to speak:

'How did a little Roman boy
stray out beyond the Wall?
You know we Picts eat bairns, except
you don't look well at all.

'You look like rasps, but you would taste
like hemlock in my stew:
my name is Nechtan, and I'm here
to gather moss for you.

'Here, take this flint -- you'll still need steel
to strike a fire and rest --
you'll have to wander till you lie
upon our mother's chest.'

Now Bill was racked with icy shakes
and stumbled on distressed
until he saw, on the green hill's side,
a path carved like a breast.

He climbed it in a dumbledaze,
he found a giant chair,
and perched on top with eyes like moons,
a Roman legionnaire.

The soldier didn't speak at first,
just lolled as a doll would sit:
'a ghost,' he muttered, 'looking at
the ghost of a coal-pit.

'I'm Aulus and I'm frost-bite-bored,
I've waited here for years:
no doubt you want my tinderbox?'
he asked with ugly sneers.

'Well, first you must give me a drink
from that small stirrup cup:
it's thirsty work to strike a spark
and start a fire up.'

Young Billy nearly gave him it
till he heard Epona's voice,
'You'll wake up dead,'so 'No,' he said:
'I'll freeze if that's my choice.'

'You'll not do that!' the soldier snapped
and struck the box with might:
a great spark leapt right down the hill
and set the farm alight.

Bill Scarlet ran from Aulus to
the blazing house below,
and heard a screaming dairymaid
within the wicked glow.

Without a thought he flung his cup
of water on the blaze,
but from its brim a flood burst out
and doused that fiery place.

The milkmaid and the farmer's wife
wrapped Billy up in silk,
and paid him for his saving cup
with a cup of warming milk.

They carried Billy home again:
he stared up at the sky,
half-sleeping heard a songbird, saw
the speckled skylark fly.

'That's Fatkin,' he said to the pair
of women, 'not a bird,'
and saw they were both nurses and
he was back in the ward.

He turned his head and through the glass
he saw a desperate frown
relax upon his mother's face:
his temperature was down.

And so Bill Scarlet's fever broke
and he went home, some say,
but some say he was never found
and wanders still today.

And if you look more closely at
the lake, or see a mole,
by wood or hill or farm you'll find
him burning like a coal.
(This poem was subsequently developed through discussion with Malcolm Green and storytelling sessions by him with visitors to the Country Park: the last thing I had to do with the project was a prose version.)

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