The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #37602   Message #525975
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
11-Aug-01 - 10:18 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Three Jovial Huntsmen (and related songs)
Subject: Lyr Add: THREE JOLLY HUNTSMEN (LANCASHIRE)
Thankyou, Sinsull.  Any chance of a tune for that one?

One more.  The Lancashire version referred to earlier I can't lay hands on just now, but I do have a more recent form of it -to the same tune- as given by Mike Harding in his Folk Songs of Lancashire (1980).  He describes it as "quoted in Waugh's Owd Cronies".  Waugh wrote in the latter part of the 19th. century, so Harding's set is clearly a modernisation; it's a pity he didn't feel able to be a little more specific.

THREE JOLLY HUNTSMEN (LANCASHIRE)

It's of three jolly huntsmen and a hunting they did go
And they hunted and they hollered and they blew their horns also
And one said "Mind your eyes and keep your noses to the wind
And then by scent or sight we'll find summat to our mind.
Look you there!"

They hunted and they hollered and the next thing they did find
Was a turnip in a turnip field and that they left behind
One said it was a boggart and the other he said "Nay!
It's just a rusty cannon ball owd Hitler threw away
Look you there!"

They hunted and they hollered and the next thing they did find
A tattered boggart in a field and that they left behind
One said it was a boggart and the other he said "Nay!
It's just a drunken tinker who's gone and lost his way
Look you there!"

They hunted and they hollered and the next thing they did find
Two lovers in a lane and those they left behind
One said as it were boggarts and the other he said "Nay!
It's just two raving lunatics who tried to run away
Look you there!"

They hunted and they hollered and the next thing they did find
An old pig lying in a poke and that they left behind
One said it was a boggart and the other he said "Nay!
It's just a Manchester alderman who hasn't much to say
Look you there!"

They hunted and they hollered and the next thing they did find
An old crow lying dead and still and that they left behind
One said it was a boggart and the other he said "Nay!
It's just a dirty blackin' brush somebody's thrown away
Look you there!"

They hunted and they hollered till the settin' of the sun
And they'd nowt to bring away at last when t' huntin' day were done
Said one unto the other "This huntin' doesn't pay
But we've powlered up and down a bit and had a rattlin' day."

The tune is The Rose.  A midi of the tune will appear at  The Mudcat Midi Pages  in due course, but can meanwhile be heard via the  South Riding Folk Network  site:

Click to play Three Jolly Huntsmen (Lancashire set).