The Demon under the Altar Stone

 

As a boy in a ruff and a surplice, gown,

I sang in the choir of a country town,

Under the eye of the Reverend Burr

In a church that had stood for a thousand years.

 

A church so old that it reeked of damp

From the days of an Anglo-Saxon camp,

They'd built their Church on a Druid site

To banish the wailing ghosts at night!

 

The Romans had slaughtered the Druid priests

In a river of blood at a Druid Feast,

And still their cries could be heard on nights

When the moon gleamed red by the altar lights.

 

The beams streamed in through the leadlight glass

With an eerie glow that was overcast,

Illumined the ancient altar stone

That covered the Bishop of Cædmon's bones.

 

The slab that lay on the floor was lipp'd

As it covered the age-old church's crypt,

And there was a crack, an inch around

Through to the crypt there, under the ground.

 

From where I sat in the old oak pew

I could see the back of the altar, too,

And through a gap where the floor was bare

Were moving shadows that shouldn't be there!

 

The crypt had been sealed, eight hundred years

Since the Normans had taken the Saxon Reeves,

Imprisoned them down in the crypt for good

Then walled them in - (so I understood!)

 

And there they suffered and there they died

The Shire Reeves of the countryside,

And no-one had ever been down there since,

Or disturbed their bones... for the merest glimpse.

 

The Reverend Burr was hellfire bent,

His sermons called to the sinners, 'Repent!'

He ranted and raved of a jealous God,

And asked why nobody reck'd his rod.

 

The smell of sulphur hung in the air

After a sermon by Reverend Burr,

And brimstone caught in my nostrils so

That I almost gagged at the horror below.

 

One Sunday, kneeling at evensong

I stared at the ancient altar stone,

And there I saw, and to my surprise,

A glow that appeared to be two red eyes!

 

They glowed bright red, and they stared at me

As if I were alone in the gallery,

My mind was full of the vicar's gall,

And I felt that a demon had pawned my soul.

 

The eyes dropped down in the crypt instead

And shadows moved, to my mounting dread,

So after the service I hurried on home,

As far as I could from that altar stone!

 

A week went by, and I thought of things,

Convinced they must be imaginings,

So off I went to the choir again,

But just to be safe, I whispered, 'Ben!'

 

'You see the crack in the altar stone,

Just tell me if I'm the only one,

I saw two eyes in that crack last week,

They scared me so much that I couldn't speak!'

 

The vicar stood by the altar there

With his bulging eyes and his crazy hair

And he roared and he pounded his fist on down

'Til it shook and it rattled the altar stone.

 

He spoke of torment and endless grief,

For the sin of pride, and the skulking thief,

For the lover of all material things,

The women who covered their hands with rings!

 

Adulterers were the scourge of God

And would fall in the cracks of the earth, he said,

While those who harboured an impure thought,

Their hopes of heaven were set at naught.

 

(But all the while it was widely known

That the vicar had been with the widow Rowan,

She'd visited him at the rectory,

And breakfasted in the Refectory).

 

His voice rose up and the altar stone

Began to rumble and then to groan,

I felt Ben tense at the side of me

As the eyes rose up, as red as could be!

 

The eyes rose up and peered from the gloom

Of the crypt, long cursed by a Druid Moon,

The more the vicar harangued and roared,

The more that it rumbled under the floor.

 

The doors blew open, the wind blew in

Like a storm raised up from the depths of sin,

The people ran for the path outside,

'You've raised the devil,' the people cried.

 

And then the floor it had opened up

Where the vicar stood, he had said enough!

Just for a moment we caught a glimpse

Of the thing in the crypt that we've not seen since!

 

An evil demon with blood-red eyes,

With hands like hooks of a monstrous size,

And teeth that grinned in the fading gloom,

The vicar fell into that terrible room.

 

We heard him scream just once down there

The sound of a sinner beyond despair,

And then the demon went down with a drone,

Covered the hole with the altar stone!

 

That church stood empty, unused for years,

They said that it carried a Druid curse,

But who would go down to the crypt alone,

Or think to disturb the altar stone?

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Norma J. Jessee]

David you have given the hypocrites something to think about with this one.
I have known a few who screamed hell and damnation to the sinners in the congragation,
thinking no-one knew of their own sins. Unlike, your poem where the unjust gets their
just due, the people kept coming to the church to hear a preacher damning everyone for their
sins when they knew the preacher was doing things they never dreamed of doing. It's a strange
world that we live in.
Your work is brilliant, David.

[Lena M. P.]

A spectacular write about the wages of sin both past and present. The horrible deaths of the druids and the sinning of flesh by the current vicar. As always, chilling.

[Kerry]

This is the first line that caught my eye: "A church so old that it reeked of damp" but the lines kept coming and kept me captivated despite the length of this piece. As I read, the words washed over me taking me back to a time long ago even as they begged me to draw forth my artist's pencils and sketch their likeness. It seems they do not want to be forgotten. But who could forget them in a tale so dark and haunting as this?

"The beams streamed in through the leadlight glass
With an eerie glow that was overcast,
Illumined the ancient altar stone
That covered the Bishop of C�dmon's bones."

Love that stanza. Love the entire piece - so much so that I read it over and over again. It has given me much to ponder as I work in my studio, sketching and painting. Thanks for taking us on a wonderful romp through the world of demons and damnation. Thanks too, for the artistic inspiration.

The rhyme is quite lovely,
The verse fine and fun,
The tale we enjoy
Is indeed well done!!!

[Valentine]

David, this one kept me captive through each verse..It is one of your better writes although I love them all..This one was so filled with suspense and old times in England..it was really good..loved it Mate..God bless..Valentine

[Mark]

Yet another dark tale, which you do so masterfully, David. Would but that the practitioners of hypocrisy could see the inevitable result of their lies as clearly as you! I will be perusing the lighter works you referred me to soon, but my plate has been rather overfull lately. BTW, do you and Rick Puetter correspond? He too writes lengthy pieces of a philosophical bent. You and he might have much in common.

[Livana Lowell]

Wow, this poem gave me chills in a lyrical way. It's so detailed and it's like you can hear a whole story from it.

[Tomás Ó C..]

Another of your brilliant stories, a leasure to read. Have you read Michael Sullivans work?