Three Jolly Rogues of Lynn
David Briggs
In good old colony days,
When we lived under the King,
Lived a miller and a weaver and a little taylor,
Three jolly rogues of Lynn.
The Miller he stole corn,
And the waaver, he stole yarn,
And the little tayolor, he stole broadcloth,
For to keep those three rogues warm.
The miller drowned in the dam,
And the Weaver hanged in the yarn,
And the Devil got his paw on the little taylor,
With the broadcloth under his arm.
And the miller still drowns in the dam,
And the weaver still hangs in the yarn,
And the little taylor, he skips through Hell,
With the broadcloth under his arm.
This, with appropriate repeats, is how I understand the song to
go. My first imperssion of this song was that it was of considerable age,
being set slightly after 1776, and that the rogues lived in Lynn
(Massachusetts?). Certanlly not in England. Curious as to whether the
song satyrized some local scoundrals or polititions, I asked a local
antique dealer, who had more of a background in history than most, if the
song could date from that era. He, however, looked faintly scandalized at
the very thught; the strong language of the lyrics (Hell, Devil),
completely obviated that possibility.
Later, thinking about this, I kept remembering Ben Franklin, as
well as the taverns and so forth that dotted even New England's
landscape, and could help wondering if this was one of the things that
the fellows in taverns used to sing, blowing off steam when not cumbered
with the company of respectable women. does anyone out there know any
more about this song? I would enjoy hearing about it if you do,
Sincerely,
Sherry Briggs
Tom Morgan
begins
There was a farmer had three sons
Three sons to him were born.
They came home right in the middle of the night,
So he kicked them out of doors.
The second goes
In merry England (En-ger-land)
When Arthur was the king,
He threw three servants out of the door
Because they woud not sing.
The rest, in both versions, is obviously a slightly different version
of the same story.
--
Tom
Abby Sale
> A friend of mine gave me the following words to an old song:
>In good old colony days,
> This, with appropriate repeats, is how I understand the song to
>go. My first imperssion of this song was that it was of considerable age,
>being set slightly after 1776, and that the rogues lived in Lynn
>(Massachusetts?). Certanlly not in England. Curious as to whether the
>song satyrized some local scoundrals or polititions, I asked a local
>antique dealer, who had more of a background in history than most, if the
>song could date from that era. He, however, looked faintly scandalized at
>the very thught; the strong language of the lyrics (Hell, Devil),
>completely obviated that possibility.
> Later, thinking about this, I kept remembering Ben Franklin, as
>well as the taverns and so forth that dotted even New England's
>landscape, and could help wondering if this was one of the things that
>the fellows in taverns used to sing, blowing off steam when not cumbered
>with the company of respectable women. does anyone out there know any
>more about this song? I would enjoy hearing about it if you do,
You're right & the dealer's wrong. The song is usually titled by the
first line, "In Good Old Colony Days." Quoting Lomax in FSNA,:
...doleful psalm singing was not the whole of New England folk
music, for not all the colonists were Puritans, nor were all the
Puritans `puritanical'. The sternest ministers loved the bottle;
indeed, when a new man was ordained, the deacons often had to be
carried home from the ceremony. On weekdays, these hearty
seventeenth century Englishmen frequented the village tavern,
where `drunken, carnal poets' sang their `carnal sonnets' (folk
songs) in spite of the bigots.
Many more of these would have been published except that the presses were
controlled by the clergy.
The song is just referred to as an "eighteenth century drinking song." And
that it was known in the south of England and as far west in the US as
Nebraska.
========================================================================
abby...@digital.net --- Somewhere in Florida
========================================================================
Daniel S Goodman
from memory):
King Arthur had three sons, that he did.
King Arthur had three sons, that he did.
He had three sons of yore
And he kicked them out of door
Because they would not sing.
So the song may be a good deal older than the American Revolution.
Dan Goodman d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu
Beverlie Robertson
anyplace where people like to sing, especially in harmonies.
In article <4edl78$e...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>, d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Daniel S
Goodman) wrote:
> King Arthur had three sons, that he did.
ryan...@gold.tc.umn.edu
>On 24 Jan 1996 20:02:24 -0800, dbr...@crl.com (David Briggs) wrote:
Curious as to whether the
>>song satyrized some local scoundrals or polititions, I asked a local
>>antique dealer, who had more of a background in history than most, if the
>>song could date from that era. He, however, looked faintly scandalized at
>>the very thught; the strong language of the lyrics (Hell, Devil),
>>completely obviated that possibility.
>> Later, thinking about this, I kept remembering Ben Franklin, as
>>well as the taverns and so forth that dotted even New England's
>>landscape, and could help wondering if this was one of the things that
>>the fellows in taverns used to sing, blowing off steam when not cumbered
>>with the company of respectable women.
Then Abby said:
>Many more of these would have been published except that the presses were
>controlled by the clergy.
You both raise interesting points. Nowadays, we still tend to assume
that a) "decent" women were either not present during the singing of
these songs, or would never have sung them themselves and; b) that it
is the monolithic "clergy" who suppressed such music.
These assumptions rarely get challenged, because they allow us to
remain within the safe boundaries of already accepted and proscribed
"facts" about musical traditions.
To illustrate my point, here is a quote from Katherine Newman's book
"Never Without A Song: The Years and Songs of Jennie Devlin
1865-1952." This is from the Introduction:
"Jennie had dictated to me her long, slightly naughty "Western
Courtship," and she had sung for us a total of five bawdy pieces. But
when I finally got a copy of the Checklist of Recorded Songs, I found
only one listed ("Some for the Girl"). Where were the others? I was
sure that there must have been some major typographical errors made by
the awesome Library of Congress. When I told D.K. Wilgus about this,
he explained that the missing ones probably went into a special
catgegory, the "Delta," "Inferno," or "Big Hell" collection.
"Improper material" that had been recorded, most likely by mistake
when the collector was not prepared for bawdy words from a sweet-faced
ballad singer, could not even be listed as being housed within the
walls of the Library of Congress. This was a "secret" I never
suspected.
The revelation of such censorship in a field of scholarly endeavor
shocked me greatly. Why was there such prudery among so many
folk-song gatherers in my time? There may have been a belief in
scholarly publishing houses that such material was beneath their
dignity. Or it might be that the image of the innocent folksinger was
not to be sullied by inappropriate verses. Folksong was supposed to
be bucolic. Tragedy was suitable; vulgarity was not.
Luckily, I have had assurance from Ed Cray, who has published his
second edition of The Erotic Muse, that the "Delta" material in the
Library of Congress is now available even though no record of those
holdings has been published. Only one of the Jennie Devlin songs is
in The Erotic Muse, but my having access to that book and to Vance
Randolph's long-suppressed work Pissing in the Snow and Other
Folktales has been liberating for me. These books have led me back to
some of Jennie's "naughty" songs and sayings, for they show that
Anglo-American country women enjoyed telling "indecent tales" to other
women, and, more important, that women can find sex quite amusing."
We rarely address the problems created when middle class collectors
censor these kinds of songs when collecting from working class and
poor "folk." It's important to remember that few clergy collected
these kinds of folk songs, and few of the "folk" relied upon written
sources for these songs. The clergy couldn't realistically have
suppressed these tunes that were part of an oral, not written
tradition because they wouldn't have been sung within earshot of them.
These class differences play a large part in what gets "preserved" as
opposed to what lives on in oral tradition. So does the political and
social orientations of the collectors (i.e. the use of folk songs in
the creation of nationalist identities, for instance).
It becomes further complicated when the collectors are from outside
the "folk" culture they are collecting from, particularly when they
don't know the language (and there are diffences in language use
between classes!) and/or are part of the colonial or economic power
structures that destroyed the folk cultures from which they collect
(once the threat of any rebellion has been eliminated). The songs
critical of the colonial powers, for instance, tend to remain outside
of the collected materials too because the colonized "folk" wouldn't
likely sing those songs in the presence of colonial collectors if they
thought they would be putting themselves and/or others in their
community at risk.
Collectors all have their own agendas, and they all have a certain way
of presenting material they collect so we will preceive it with their
"slant." They have motives for collecting that never are mentioned in
collected materials, notes, records of conversations, etc. And more
often than not, their slant & their motives have little to do with the
actual living traditions of the people whose "lore" they collect &
present to us as consumers, students, etc.
Janet
George Black
beve...@nh1adm.uwaterloo.ca (Beverlie Robertson) wrote:
>It is indeed older than the American Revolution! Good pub song or
>anyplace where people like to sing, especially in harmonies.
>
>In article <4edl78$e...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>, d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Daniel S
>Goodman) wrote:
>> King Arthur had three sons, that he did.
Other words are:
three jolly rogues of Lynn
Lived a miller and a weaver and a little tailor
three jolly rogues of Lynn
The miller he stole corn, the weaver he stole yarn and the little tailor he
stole broadcloth for to keep the three rogues warm
George Black Hamilton New Zealand
gbl...@midland.co.nz
3:774/605.112
If you think you have a problem
ikate...@gmail.com
Like many place names etc that were adopted in the New World, your 'Colony' version has been adapted, very properly given it's a Folk song, for its new home in the USA - but it is older than you suspected.
The words here are not really the clue at all - it's the tune / tempo they are sung to that gives away the origin, if you have grown up among folk singers.
Words change in folk, in this song notably often, but the tune itself is strikingly Old English rather than the more modern American folk - different too from any of the traditional Celtic folk styles.
ikate...@gmail.com
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001HR4J5M/ref=dm_ws_tlw_trk5
daime...@gmail.com
Whatever happened to them?