Author Topic: Add: Hey ho, The Morning Dew


dmcg

Posted - 10 Jul 05 - 09:48 am

My father bought at great expense
A grand high stepping grey,
But when he puts her to the fence,
She backs and backs away

(Chorus)
Sing, Hey ho, the morning dew,
Hey ho, the rose and rue!
Follow me, my bonny lad,
For I'll not go with you!

My mother bought a likely hen,
On last St. Martin's day:
She clucks and clucks and cluchs again:
But never yet will lay.

O Mustard is my brother's dog,
Who whines and wags his tail,
And snuffs into the market bag -
But dar' not snatch the meal.

When walls lie down for steeds to step,
When eggs themselves do lay,
And the groats jump into Mustard's jaws,
To you my court I'll pay!



Source: Singing Together, Autumn 1973, BBC Publications


Notes:

Identified as Irish.




masato sakurai

Posted - 10 Jul 05 - 11:40 am

Very probably it comes from The National Song Book, edited by C.V. Stanford (Boosey & Co., 1906, p. 145), where there's a note: "Founded on an old song, the words and air of which were given by Miss Honoria Galway, of Moville, Co. Donegal."






Malcolm Douglas
Posted - 10 Jul 05 - 05:22 pm

It's a re-write of a form of Blow Away the Morning Dew (Child 112 Roud 11, The Baffled Knight); the tune is close enough to well-known forms to be recognisable. Most known examples are from England and Scotland, with some also found in the USA and Canada; Roud currently lists no Irish examples at all. There evidently is a Northern Irish branch, though: besides this, Sarah Makem had a version, The Shepherd Lad, which used much the same chorus.

A transcription is quoted at http://www.reenchantmentofsex.com/appendix.html, but this is made from a recording by Cilla Fisher, who learned it from Sarah Makem, so I don't know how accurate it is, or how far it follows the Makem text.

Honoria Galwey (1829-1925) published some arrangements of Irish melodies set to new words, including Old Irish Croonauns and Other Tunes (1910). She was a participant in the debate over the origins of The Londonderry Air.




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