Axe Mountain Lyrics

Sit down here beside me
And I'll tell you a tale
Of lonely old Axe Mountain town
And Lester Joseph Cale

In a place the men would work by day,
The women worked at night
And came together evening time
To love and then to fight

Long hours did the women work
And hard their burden was,
So doubly hard they worried when
Young Lily May was lost

Axe Mountain town, you let those women
Die by the knife
A lover did I have for sure
I'll love her all my life

Lily May was mourned
Another week passed in the rain
Until the day of harvest came
And we were missing Jane

Another season's toil gone,
Another season's more;
'Til Lily, Jane and dozens still
Were buried on the Moor

What did their husbands say?
They simply cowered, weak and frail
For none would dare to speak that name,
Lester Joseph Cale

Axe Mountain town, you let those women
Die by the knife
A lover did I have for sure
I'll keep her all my life

He came out of the darkness
With a rucksack made of skin
And just as soon as he was seen
He was gone again

I heard he'd been a murderer
Fifty years or more
Heard he killed whole villages
All across the Moor

I'm told he had a family
A child and a wife
But now no woman here was safe
From Lester Joseph Cale's knife

"Stand up! Be strong! We'll take him!"
Said the bravest of the men
Dead in his bed, was found that night
In pieces, there were ten

'All shall be bled', was written
In red on the bedroom wall
His Helena, she saw this
And she fled across the Moor

Axe Mountain town, you let those women
Die by the knife
A lover did I have for sure
I'll hold her all my life

She climbed up old Axe Mountain
And she raised her hands and cried:
"Grant me a weapon, gods of mine,
that Lester Cale may die"

The sky did crack, and split the mountain
Helena reached inside
Pulled out an axe so terrible
That any man would die

She screamed with rage
And flung herself into the town below
Tore off her clothes and waited for
Lester Joseph Cale to show

And so he did, he came and laughed:
"Little girl, what is your plan?
You're alone here, it's just you and me
I butchered your old man"

Said she: "Bastard! Don't speak his name!
Don't mention my old man!"
And so she struck him in the face
And cut off both his hands

She cut him and cut him twice again
'Til she could cut no more
She fed his meat and bones
To wild dogs upon the Moor

The seasons passed and
Helena remained there 'til she died
The men went off in search
Of better jobs and living brides

But a woman there was mine, you see
I loved her more than life
So scared was I
So scared of Lester Joseph Cale was I,
I could not protect my wife

Axe Mountain town, you let those women
Die by the blade
A lover did I have for sure
Regret it every day

Axe Mountain town, you let those women
Die by the knife
A lover did I have for sure
I'll love her all my life