Lammas Hireling

Question 1

natural world

Answer 1

• presents the natural world as a space of both fertility and disturbance, intimately tied to the speaker’s psychological unraveling
• “cattle doted on him” and “heifers, fat as cream”
  = pastoral setting is romanticised using natural, wholesome imagery
  = cant escape his fascination w hireling
  BUT
• idyllic tone quickly unsettled as the speaker notes “I grew fond of company / that knew when to shut up.”
  = suggests preference for emotional repression and silence, foreshadowing the speaker’s own inability to confront deeper feelings or truths
  = speaker represses and hides his feelings
• “I knew him a warlock, a cow with leather horns”
  = folkloric language fuses human, animal, and supernatural traits
• “cow with leather horns” is absurd and uncanny
  = suggesting transformation or faerie folklore, where shapeshifting and magic blur identities
• “To go into the hare gets you muckle sorrow, / the wisdom runs, muckle care”
  = directly references Celtic folklore about witches transforming into hares
  = reinforcing idea that the hireling is a supernatural being and that the speaker is dabbling in forbidden knowledge
• “The small hour” implies the dead of night
  = a time traditionally associated w supernatural activity, secrecy, and guilt
  = ritualistic tone continues in “The moon came out”
  = nature becomes animate and eerie= hireling’s transformation is described in gradual, earthy terms of “fur over like a stone mossing”
  = a grotesque natural metamorphosis, as if nature itself is reclaiming or revealing his true form

Question 2

context

Question 3

form

Answer 3

• every stanza has enjambment= no order or structure when telling his story
  = dramatic monologue to highlight unreliability of narrator
• no clear rhyme or meter
  = reflect poet’s lack of stability

Question 4

overview

Answer 4

• deeply ambiguous and unsettling narrative poem that explores themes of guilt, the supernatural, and repression through a first-person dramatic monologue
• speaker’s psychological descent is mirrored in the poem’s fragmented structure, rich in folkloric references, and filled with lexical choices that blur reality and imagination

Question 5

religion

Answer 5

• poem ends w a chilling mockery of religious ritual
  = “Bless me Father for I have sinned. / It has been an hour since my last confession.”
  = traditional Catholic confessional formula is twisted
  = the short time frame (“an hour”) implies compulsive guilt and failed absolution= religion, like nature, cannot cleanse him
  = final tone is one of madness, isolation, and spiritual decay

Question 6

relationships

Answer 6

• ‘dreams of my dear late wife’
  = alliteration of ‘disturbed’ and ‘dreams’= creates tone of chaotic events
  = ambiguity of wife’s death= sounds of each word create sense of suspense and tension of speaker’s truth or life= uncertainty of stories
  = dream of his dead wife merges into waking horror, blurring reality and illusion
• ‘torn voice’
  = ‘dear’ contradicts ‘hunts’= image of love and wife contrasts to violence and death of hunting

Question 7

description of hireling

Answer 7

• ‘stock still’ and ‘stark naked’
  = contrast to previous imagery of ‘hunt’= like a deer in the headlights
  = may reflect a shadow version of himself that’s been caught in the headlights
  = farmer sees himself in hireling
  = both don’t belong in this world= when he kills hireling, he kills that part of himself= conforms to society

Question 8

magic

Answer 8

• “To go into the hare gets you muckle sorrow, / the wisdom runs, muckle care”
  = directly references Celtic folklore about witches transforming into hares
  = reinforcing idea that the hireling is a supernatural being and that the speaker is dabbling in forbidden knowledge
• “The small hour” implies the dead of night
  = a time traditionally associated w supernatural activity, secrecy, and guilt
  = ritualistic tone continues in “The moon came out”
  = nature becomes animate and eerie= hireling’s transformation is described in gradual, earthy terms of “fur over like a stone mossing”
  = a grotesque natural metamorphosis, as if nature itself is reclaiming or revealing his true form
• speaker’s guilt becomes unbearable= “in a sack that grew lighter at every step”
  = contradicts physical laws= suggesting either a magical disappearance or a metaphor for emotional release or delusion
  = lack of splash when the body is dropped= “There was no splash”
  = confirms the supernatural tone= suggests the body never existed in a physical form or that the act was purely symbolic
  = a sign of the speaker’s unreliable narration and deteriorating grasp on reality
• final lines, the speaker is consumed by paranoia and guilt
  = “Now my herd’s elf-shot. I don’t dream / but spend my nights casting ball from half-crowns.”
  = “Elf-shot” is another folkloric reference to fairy-blighted livestock
  = speaker believes he is cursed= his attempt to cast bullets from silver coins links to supernatural folklore, where silver harms witches and spirits
  = obsessive nature of his behaviour—“I don’t dream… spend my nights…”—reveals a mind consumed by fear and guilt