Without knowing that it was designed as an insult to the French, he used to say and sing in corrupted form,
Suum, mun, hey no nonny,
Dolphin, my boy, my boy,
Sessa, let him trot by.
Another was that from the ballad in honour of the Earl of Essex, called Queen Elizabeth's Champion, which Johnson quoted in the Isle of Sky; and Johnson is not the only omnivorous reader in whose memory it has stuck;
Raderer too, tandaro tee
Radarer, tandorer, tan do ree.
And he had treasured up the elder fragment,
Martin Swart and his men.
Sodledum, sodledum,
Martin Swart and his men,
Sodledum bell,
With hey troly loly lo, whip here Jack,
Alumbeck, sodledum, syllerum ben,
Martin Swart and his merry men.
He had also this relic of the same age, relating as it seems to some now forgotten hero of the strolling minstrels,
Rory-bull Joyse,
Rumble down, tumble down, hey, go now now.
Here is another, for he uttered these things ‘as he had eaten ballads.’
A story strange I will you tell,
But not so strange as true,
Of a woman that danced upon the rope,
And so did her husband too:
With a dildo, dildo, dildo,
With a dildo, dildo, dee.