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A Pembroke Legend
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Was a present from the wee folk,
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For their father told a legend.
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How the fairies kept some dwarf dogs.
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Called them Corgis - Fairy heelers;
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Made them work the fairy cattle.
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Made them pull the fiary coaches,
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Made them steeds for fairy riders,
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Made them fairy children’s playmates;
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Kept them hidden in the mountains,
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Kept them in the mountain’s shadow.
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Lest the eye of mortal see one.
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Now the Corgis grew and prospered,
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And the fairies’ life was in them,
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In the lightness of their movement,
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In the quickness of their turning,
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In their badness and their goodness.
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And they learnt to work for mortals,
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Learnt to love their mortal masters,
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Learnt to work their master’s cattle,
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Learnt to play with mortal children.
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Now in every vale and hamlet,
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In the valleys and the mountains,
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From the little town of Tenby,
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By the Port of Milford Haven,
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To St. David’s Head and Fishguard,
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In the Valley of the Cleddau,
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On the mountains of Preselly,
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Lives the Pembrokeshire Welsh Corgi,
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Lives the Corgi with his master.
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Should you doubt this ancient story,
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Laugh and scoff and call it nonsense,
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Look and see the saddle markings
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Where the fairy warriors rode them.
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(As they ride them still at midnight,
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On Midsummer’s Eve at midnight,
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When we mortals all are sleeping.)
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Author: Anne G Biddlecombe
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Found in the 1975 American Pembroke Standard
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