T. E. Brown is the National Poet of the Isle of Man, and his narrative poem, Betsy Lee, (published with his first Fo'c's'le Yarns in 1881) is recognised as his most important and wonderful poem.
Although sections of it are well known to most Manx people (such as the 'When childher plays' section with its wonderful 'Happy and over and short enough' lines), the true joy of the poem lies in its full story.
As an easy introduction to the poem, we asked an 8-year-old to tell us how it goes...