The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173795   Message #4215114
Posted By: GUEST,Black Auk
11-Jan-25 - 02:45 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Come All You Little Streamers
Subject: ADD: Come All You Little Streamers
Does anyone know what a streamer is in the song Come All You Little Streamers? All I get from Google is references to streaming music or videos.

The only mention is in Mainly Norfolk, and there's a recording of the Shirley Collins and the Etchingham Steam Band on Spotify.

This is how it goes:

COME ALL YOU LITTLE STREAMERS

Oh, come all you little streamers wherever you may be
These are the finest flowers that ever my eyes did see.
Fine flowery hills and fishing dells and hunting also
At the top all of this mountain where fine flowers grow.

At the top all of the mountain where my love’s castle stands
It’s over-decked with ivory to the bottom of the strand.
There’s arches and there’s parches and a diamond stone so bright;
It’s a beacon for a sailor on a dark, stormy night.

At the bottom of this mountain there runs a river clear.
A ship from the Indies did once anchor there,
With her red flags a-flying and the beating of a drum,
Sweet instruments of music and the firing of her gun.

So come all you little streamers that walks the meadows gay
And write unto my own true love wherever he may be
For his sweet lips entice me, but his tongue it tells me “No!”
And an angel might direct us and it’s where shall we go?