An elderly woman recites a short, rhyming prayer, calling on the Holy Rood—the cross—to protect her and hers. She asks for safety in the city and the countryside, a plea that covers all the places daily life might take her. Her words reach for round-the-clock shelter: from the "blast that burns by day," perhaps a feverish heat or a scorching sun, and from the frightening noises that haunt damp, dead-of-night hours. She also begs to be cleared of "hurtful fiends"—harmful spirits—by the time the rooster crows at dawn, that age-old signal of light’s victory over darkness. The poem feels like a whispered incantation, intimate and rhythmic, as if spoken beside a dying fire. There’s a trembling vulnerability beneath the simple rhymes, a sense of real fear of unseen forces, but also a sturdy faith that the holy symbol can form a barrier. The mood hovers between homely comfort and old-world unease.
THE OLD WIVES' PRAYER — Summary
Holy-Rood, come forth and shield Us i' th' city and the field; Safely guard us, now and aye, From the blast that burns by day; And those sounds that us affright In the dead of dampish night; Drive all hurtful fiends us fro, By the time the cocks first crow.