confused, as usual

I was thinking of Jingle Bells again

     More to the point, the spelling of sleigh.  I can't think of another word that ends in eigh.  Eight has a t, so eighth has a th.  But you knew that.
     I was always taught that when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.  So sleigh should sound like slee..... because the e would do the talking.
     Neigh.  Just thought of that.  Horses do it, right?   And weigh, so I guess when I think about it, sleigh is not the only one.
     But still, why the A sound and not E?
     Sometimes when I am in church and we are singing a him, (yes, done on purpose) I see a lot of rhymes and then  I see a line ending in come and the next line, which should rhyme, is home.  They don't rhyme, although you would think they would because they have the same spelling pattern.  Maybe the writers didn't actually read the words out loud.
     I think it's a plot to confuse us.  A long time ago some monk in a monastery sat down and wrote a bunch of things and then on the day they can talk he convinced people to follow a bunch of nonsensical spelling patterns, like slay and sleigh.
     He's probably watching us right now and laughing like crazy because we sometimes use gh, or ph, to spell f when we could just be using f.
     And the person who wrote Jingle Bells had to use sleigh instead of sled or sledge.
     Think of those lyrics if he hadn't
Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sled
run into the trees, we will all be dead
     It rhymes. That's what counts.
     And that is all I want to say about that.