The Lammas Hireling (Ian Duhig)
Title and context
• ‘Lammas’ refers to a traditional festival marking the beginning of the harvest
season (early August). Hireling would therefore be a self-employed farmhand hired
from an agricultural fair to help out at this busy time.
• Hireling is an archetypal intruder, taciturn stranger. Central to the poem’s plot
and mystery.
• Dated language - evokes the atmosphere of historical times and rural setting. Era
of deeply entrenched superstition and folklore in rural communities (due to chance
involved with harvests etc. and lack of scientific knowledge), potent fear of
witchcraft and supernatural activity
Plot summary and interpretation
First stanza: widower farmer hires a farmhand at the fair, good price, success on farm
Second stanza: but one night, dreams of late wife wake him, and he finds the farmhand
and identifies him with the supernatural: ‘knew him a warlock’
Third stanza: shoots him instinctively and he changes into a hare
Fourth stanza: drops his body over a bridge, farm out of luck and farmer isolated, melts
down money gained into bullets, overcome by guilt and turns to confession.
Meta-textually, there may be more to the story. One interpretation: the farmer is
attracted to the hireling against his better judgement (has been lonely for a long time,
feels guilty due to the taboo of homosexuality, memory of late wife stirs him into action),
can’t bear it and has to destroy evidence of these feelings – so kills the hireling despite
feelings of love and pity. Shape-shifting into hare could be literal, or could be his
hallucinations/him trying to justify his actions afterwards. Combined guilt at end as he has
killed the innocent hireling and arguably was attracted to him, so seeks repentance.
Possible themes
• Supernatural, folklore
• Societal taboos
• Guilt and confession vs innocence
• Human emotions and relationships
• Setting itself is important – recreating atmosphere of outdated rural beliefs, vivid
storytelling
Form
4 stanzas of 6 lines, no regular syllable patterns, stanza breaks don’t quite match
paragraph breaks. Lack of formality in structure reflects the tone of the poem as the
farmer relating a story, intimate, like he is speaking to us about what has happened
(perhaps the reader is even cast into the role of the priest in the confession booth). Use of
varied sentence lengths and enjambment adds to this conversational flow and creates
particular effects (see quote analysis below).
Title and context
• ‘Lammas’ refers to a traditional festival marking the beginning of the harvest
season (early August). Hireling would therefore be a self-employed farmhand hired
from an agricultural fair to help out at this busy time.
• Hireling is an archetypal intruder, taciturn stranger. Central to the poem’s plot
and mystery.
• Dated language - evokes the atmosphere of historical times and rural setting. Era
of deeply entrenched superstition and folklore in rural communities (due to chance
involved with harvests etc. and lack of scientific knowledge), potent fear of
witchcraft and supernatural activity
Plot summary and interpretation
First stanza: widower farmer hires a farmhand at the fair, good price, success on farm
Second stanza: but one night, dreams of late wife wake him, and he finds the farmhand
and identifies him with the supernatural: ‘knew him a warlock’
Third stanza: shoots him instinctively and he changes into a hare
Fourth stanza: drops his body over a bridge, farm out of luck and farmer isolated, melts
down money gained into bullets, overcome by guilt and turns to confession.
Meta-textually, there may be more to the story. One interpretation: the farmer is
attracted to the hireling against his better judgement (has been lonely for a long time,
feels guilty due to the taboo of homosexuality, memory of late wife stirs him into action),
can’t bear it and has to destroy evidence of these feelings – so kills the hireling despite
feelings of love and pity. Shape-shifting into hare could be literal, or could be his
hallucinations/him trying to justify his actions afterwards. Combined guilt at end as he has
killed the innocent hireling and arguably was attracted to him, so seeks repentance.
Possible themes
• Supernatural, folklore
• Societal taboos
• Guilt and confession vs innocence
• Human emotions and relationships
• Setting itself is important – recreating atmosphere of outdated rural beliefs, vivid
storytelling
Form
4 stanzas of 6 lines, no regular syllable patterns, stanza breaks don’t quite match
paragraph breaks. Lack of formality in structure reflects the tone of the poem as the
farmer relating a story, intimate, like he is speaking to us about what has happened
(perhaps the reader is even cast into the role of the priest in the confession booth). Use of
varied sentence lengths and enjambment adds to this conversational flow and creates
particular effects (see quote analysis below).
