Gather round, gather round
Your grandmother calls you
T’is the end of the day
Tonight she’ll tell her tale
A Christmas tradition

Once we are sitting
Cross legged at her feet
She is ready to tell
Of the Boxing Day hunt
The Feast of Saint Stephen

She starts with the scene
Frost on the ground
The huntsmen in red
The hounds milling round
A wren in the hedge

She builds up the tension
The boy on a pony
Dressed in his tweed
A whip in his hand
Fear in his eye

She glances around
We jump over gates
Thunder through fields
Caught in the chase
After our prey

Then the call of the hound
The fox gone to ground
A vicious dig into earth
The quarry exposed, dispatched
And a bloodied boy more fearful than before