There is a certain air of reckless abandonment about them which seems to suggest a folk-origin, and they are, at any rate, far less obviously the work of a literary man than are the verses—apart from the refrain—of “I cannot eat.”
In The Songster’s Museum (Gosport), there is a parody of the above song (chorus omitted), which, the Bagford Ballads (volume i, p. 214), are attributed to Tom Dibdin.
A tune to “I cannot eat” is given in Ritson, and in Popular Music of the Olden Time (p. 72), and is a version of “John Dory.” The tune in the text has no relation whatever to that well-known air, nor to any other tune that I know of. In my opinion, it may well be a genuine folk-air.
The singer gave me two verses only, the second and third in the text. The other two are from a version which the Rev. S. Baring-Gould collected in Devon, and which he has courteously allowed me to use. Mr. H. E. D. Hammond has recovered similar words in Dorset, but, like Mr. Baring-Gould, he found them mated to quite a modern and “composed” air.
No. 79. The Keeper
This is one of the few two-men folksongs. I have several variants of it, but the words of all of them, except this particular one, were so corrupt as to be unintelligible. The words are printed in an old garland, from which the last stanza in the text has been derived. The rest of the words are given as they were sung to me.
No. 80. The Three Sons
For other versions with tunes, see English County Songs (p. 20), and Miss Mason’s Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs (p. 7).
No. 81. Jack Hall
Jack Hall, who had been sold to a chimney-sweep for a guinea, was executed for burglary at Tyburn in 1701. The song must have been written before 1719, for in Pills to Purge Melancholy (volume ii, p. 182), there is a song, “The Moderator’s Dream,” “the words made to a pretty tune, call’d Chimney Sweep,” which is in identically the same metre as that of “Jack Hall.” A vulgarized edition of the song was made very popular in the middle years of the last century by a comic singer, G. W. Ross.
I have taken down four versions, the tunes of which, with the exception of that given in the text, are all variants of the “Admiral Benbow” air (see No. 87). The metre in which each of these two ballads is cast is so unusual that we may assume that one was written in imitation of the other. As Jack Hall was executed in 1701 and Admiral Benbow was killed in 1702, it is probable that “Jack Hall” is the earlier of the two.
The singer could recall the words of one verse only. The remaining stanzas have been taken from my other versions. The tune is in the Æolian mode.
No. 82. Driving away at the Smoothing Iron
I have noted two other versions of this song. The tune is a variant of “All round my hat,” a popular song of the early years of the last century. Chappell, in his Ancient English Melodies (No. 126), prints a version of the air and dubs it “a Somersetshire tune,” the original of ‘All round my hat.’ ” I believe it to be a genuine folk-air, which, as in other cases, formed the basis of a street-song.
No. 83. The Robber
The words to which this remarkably fine Dorian air was sung were about a highwayman and his sweetheart, but were too fragmentary for publication. I have wedded the tune to a different, but similar, set of words which another singer sang to a very poor tune.
No. 84. John Barleycorn
For other versions with tunes of this well-known ballad, see Songs of the West (No. 14 and Note, 2d cd.); Barrett’s English Folk Songs (No. 8); Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, p. 81; volume iii, p. 255); and Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs of Scotland (volume i, p. 134).
The earliest printed copy of the ballad is of the time of James I.
