Gill (Harry)

A farmer struck with the curse of ever shivering with cold, because he would not allow old Goody Blake to keep a few stray sticks which she had picked up to warm herself by.

“Oh! what’s the matter? what’s the matter?

What isʹt that ails young Harry Gill,

That evermore his teeth they chatter,

Chatter, chatter, chatter, still? … .

No word to any man he utters,

A-bed or up, to young or old;

But ever to himself he mutters—

“Poor Harry Gill is very cold.”

Wordsworth: Goody Blake and Harry Gill.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.