The ploughboy is sometimes in love and sings of his passion in the folk-song. Sometimes it is the lady who declares her love for the handsome ploughboy, and both varieties are quite popular specimens of rural simplicity.
XIII. DRINKING SONGS AND
HUMOROUS SONGS
The drinking song is not very common among folk-songs. “The good old leathern bottle,” and some other South country songs, chiefly dealing with harvest-home festivities, can scarcely be called such. They speak of the home-brewed farm ale in an honest fashion, and without the gloating over liquor which is so much a feature of the eighteenth century bacchanalian song. “When Joan’s ale was new” is popular over most parts of England, and “Drink old England dry” is another very harmless production.
The humorous song does not very frequently occur. Sometimes we may come across one that fulfils all the essentials of wit but will scarcely bear repetition. Others are humorous and in other respects quite satisfactory. “Richard of Taunton Dean” is too well known to quote, and “The Dumb Wife Cured” is another that has been frequently reprinted, and it is possibly, really, not a folk-song. “The Grey Mare” is an excellent example. It tells of a young miller who made overtures to a young lady’s father to obtain her hand. The dowry was agreed upon, save that the young man had fixed his mind upon the farmer’s grey mare as part of it. The old man not being inclined to part with this the bargain was “off.” After the death of the farmer the miller again sought the lady, who declared she did not know him. Except that
“A man in your likeness,
With long yellow hair,
Did once come a-courting
My father’s grey mare.”
“Eggs in the basket,” narrating the adventures of two sailors, of which there are several versions in the Folk-Song Journal, comes under the category of humorous songs, and the Devonshire song “Widdicombe Fair” has, since its publication in Songs of the West, met with wide appreciation. Songs in dispraise of a married life are not frequent in folk-song, but there is a well-known one in “Advice to Bachelors,” in Dr Barrett’s English Folk-Songs, that appears to be a genuine folk-song. Its end verse contains the gist of the story. A criminal under the gallows is offered free pardon if he will marry, but—
“He pondered deep, for life is dear,
But still he thought without a fear
That wives are cheap, and he knew well
How much his sorrows one might swell.
There’s people here of every sort,
And why should I prevent their sport?
The bargain’s hard in every part;
But the woman’s the worst—
Drive on the cart!”