Le Fanu, J. Sheridan

Neither Pig Nor Maid

We had started a little too late; Madame grew unwontedly fatigued and sat down to rest on a stile before we had got half-way; and there she intoned, with a dismal nasal cadence, a quaint old Bretagne ballad, about a lady with a pig’s head:

1.  
2. “This lady was neither pig nor maid,
3. And so she was not of human mould;
4. Not of the living nor the dead.
5. Her left hand and foot were warm to touch;
6. Her right as cold as a corpse’s flesh!
7. And she would sing like a funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune.
8. The pigs were afraid, and viewed her aloof;
9. And women feared her and stood afar.
10. She could do without sleep for a year and a day;
11. She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and more.
12. No one knew how this lady fed–
13. On acorns or on flesh.
14. Some say that she’s one of the swine-possessed,
15. That swam over the sea of Gennesaret.
16. A mongrel body and a demon soul.
17. Some say she’s the wife of the Wandering Jew,
18. And broke the law for the sake of pork;
19. And a swinish face for a token doth bear,
20. That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.“