Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

In my Book of the West I have given a lengthy ballad of instruction on the growth of apple trees, and the gathering of apples and the making of cyder, which I heard sung by an old man at Washfield, near Tiverton. The following song was sung to me by an aged tanner of Launceston, some twenty years ago, which he professed to have composed himself:—

In a nice little village not far from the sea,

Still lives my old uncle aged eighty and three;

Of orchards and meadows he owns a good lot,

Such cyder as his—not another has got.

Then fill up the jug, boys, and let it go round,

Of drinks not the equal in England is found.

So pass round the jug, boys, and pull at it free,

There’s nothing like cyder, sparkling cyder, for me.