The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #118885   Message #2573753
Posted By: Jack Blandiver
23-Feb-09 - 10:40 AM
Thread Name: Songs For Spring Equinox/Easter?
Subject: Lyr Add: OVERTON PACE-EGGING SONG
There's any amount of Pace-Egging songs of which I'm sure you're aware. Pace-Egging? Pagan? Do a search on Google and the Pagan Community certainly assume so in their gleeful appropriation of anything folkloric in the hope of menacing overtones of rampant fertility rites, ribald rudery, and rummy shenanigans in the newly-green wood...

A few old threads on this too, such as:

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=71653&messages=14

Rachel & I are working up a version of the following right now, as sung by Frank Williamson in Durham; a song that's almost local to us since we relocated to Fleetwood:

The Overton Pace-Egging Son (aka Beg Your Leave)

I beg your leave, kind gentlemen and ladies of renown,
If you'll please to make us room we will sing to you a song,
You please to make us room, we will sing to you a song,
And we'll call in our comrades and call them one by one.

Chorus:
    Oh we're jolly boys, we do no harm
    Wherever we do go
    For we've come a pace-egging
    As you very well do know

So the first that does come in, he is a blooming youth,
He courts all the pretty girls, and always tells them truth;
He say's he'll never deceive them, he's always kind and true,
And 'tis his delight both day and night in drinking of strong brew.

So the next that does come in, he is a sailor brave,
He says he's ploughed the ocean, and split the briny wave,
He says he has got gold, and he says he has got store,
And he says he'll marry a pretty girl and go to sea no more.

So the next that does come in, oh he is a roving blade,
Amongst the lasses he will be, for he is such a jade,
Red rosy cheeks are his delight, most beautiful and fair,
And if you want a sweetheart, you must come to Overton fair!

So the next that does come in, oh she is Miss Kitty Fair,
She takes a great delight in the curling of her hair,
She carries a basket by her side - she's got no store put in -
It's her delight delight both day and night in drinking of strong gin.

So now you've seen us all, speak of us as you find,
You'll please to give up a trifle - it will be very kind.
So cheer up your spirits while we drink a glass of beer,
And we'll drink you health and store your wealth until the very next year.