Origins: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 03:43 PM

It would probably be illuminating to compare the 17thc version with the Goggin text and then with the earliest TFD text but I'm a bit snowed under with projects at the moment.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 03:52 PM

But even if that the case, Steve ~~ the phrase must have come from somewhere, had some meaning or referent for someone... And why should the [sort-of] mondegreen you postulate here have so universally caught on that this song under this title is as recognisable in some version, or at least as a title, to practically everyone, as those I cited some posts back, 12 oct 0517 pm: to which one might add e.g. Waltzing Matilda, Vicar of Bray, John Peel ... Oh, you know what I mean.

I agree with what I take to be your point that the evidential value of the Irish rebel versions under the title is scant, as they were clearly just recycling a phrase which had reached cliche status because of the older song.

~M~

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 06:01 PM

Michael, why can't you just accept that in the late 18thc the phrase 'foggy dew' was used to describe the dew that lies on the grass during foggy conditions and thereafter, as Dick simply states?
It may somewhere along the line have had some other significance but without any direct proof there's not a lot of point in prolonging the agony.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 12:13 AM

Because, Steve, I know of no other uses of the phrase, C18 or other. And I don't believe you or Dick do either.

Many many refs in verse, and lit in general, to dew, C18 and before & after, up to Sidney Carter's "The youth of the heart and the dew in the morning"; a commonplace image for ephemerality. Probably fewer, but certainly some to fog - notably Bleak House in C19. But, as the common combo which you seem to be urging, can think of none but this one under question.

Can you?

Till you cite me one, I see no reason for the disputative, contentious [and perhaps a bit patronising] tone of your "why can't you just..."

I can't because the phrase just was not so used with the regularity implied by the tone of exasperation evident in your question.

~M~

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 08:55 AM

Michael,
I've found 4 more songs that use the phrase in the title. Possibly/likely others that use the phrase somewhere. If you are so desperate to find hidden meanings then you must search further yourself.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 09:09 AM

I always assumed semen.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 11:44 AM

Can you be more specific as to your 4 songs, Steve? Variants or entirely different songs?

But, even then, you have been claiming the phrase as a commonplace of C18 usage to explain how it infiltrated the song in place of misunderstandings of Bugaboo. It is the existence of the phrase in this sort of common usage which I dispute. You have not produced a single example of it used, except as a title and part of the eponymous text of some songs. Put up or...

And will you take on board that finding hidden meanings is not something I do: I hate the idea. All I did was direct people to some suggestions by someone else which I thought those interested in the history of this partic song should like to know about --

PLEASE SEE MY REPLY TO MIKE Y 14 Oct 0416 am

~M~

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 08:32 PM

Peter Kennedy includes the song, under the title "The Foggy Foggy Dew", in his _Folksongs of Britain and Ireland_ (Oak, 1975). The version he gives (he lists a lot of others) resembles the one quoted above from Martin Carthy, Cyprus cat & all. (I presume, however, that the "cod" offered was actually a cot; Kennedy has "crib".)

In the introduction to the chapter containing the song, Kennedy says:
"James Reeves, in trying to discover the significance of the title, suggests 'fogge', the 'Middle English for coarse, rank grass of the kind which grows in marshes and bogs where the atmosphere would be damp and misty', and this, as in _Rolling in the Dws_..., would represent maidenhead, and the dew would imply virginity or chastity. 'Foggy Dew' may be an English tongue's best attempt at the sound of the Gaelic, and derive from 'Oroce dhu' meaning a black or dark night. Robert Graves proposed a theory that it stood for the black pestilence of the church and that the girl was really being protected from entering a nunnery. There seems to be no end to what can be interpreted from the lines of folksongs."
For this last statement there seems to be plenty of evidence.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 09:34 AM

I saw very clearly your reply to Mike.

5 entirely different songs. See my posting of 14th Oct 3.36 pm.

You're the one pushing hidden meaning. I'm happy with literal. I haven't said anything about it being a phrase in common usage other than in the 5 songs I mentioned, but if it can be found in 5 independent titles it is quite possible that it will occur elsewhere as well, but I'm not sufficiently interested to go hunting for it.

Happy hunting!

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 11:25 AM

"I haven't said anything about it being a phrase in common usage

So what's this then?

Michael, why can't you just accept that in the late 18thc the phrase 'foggy dew' was used to describe the dew that lies on the grass during foggy conditions

A phrase claimed to have been used at a particular, specified time ('late 18thc') surely carries the implication of its having been in common use at that time. How else is one to interpret your "why can't just accept" question above?

~M~

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 11:52 AM

And I am NOT 'pushing hidden meaning'. I merely referred once to a work in which one such was suggested by someone else, written some years ago so perhaps unknown to the next generation ~~ piece of info that I thought might be of interest to some reading this thread who had not come across it before. That's what Mudcat threads are FOR, isn't it?

Why this had made me such an object of obloquy & attack and INACCURATE denunciation from Mike Y ("why, oh why", "spouting", "rubbish") & Steve G ("desperate", "pushing hidden meaning"), I am utterly at a loss to say.

But I will say that I regard it as spiteful and derogatory and unnecessary, and should be much obliged if you would desist. It is distressing me, I do not mind telling you ~~ and I do not normally suffer from a paranoid personality.

"Pushing hidden meaning" up your drivelly rectum, Gardham. Which, as regulars on Mudcat should recognise, is a far-out extreme of abuse for me, who generally avoid such locutions altogether, as unworthy & counterproductive.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 11:57 AM

...and unmannerly. I cool down, and apologise unreservedly for such an outburst; to Steve and everybody.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 06:09 PM

Michael,
I apologise also for contributing to your outburst.

My comment doesn't imply at all that the phrase was in common usage, just that it was being used more than once in several song titles for whatever reason.

If you're not pushing hidden meanings then why are we arguing?

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 11:24 PM

Good morning, Steve.

Mainly because of your constant accusations that I was continually pursuing hidden meanings, a practice I kept reiterating that I dislike generally, when all I had done was cite one other person's opinion on them just once. So, now you appear to have apologised for having done so, let's stop arguing, shall we?

~M~

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:35 AM

Absolutely. There are few enough of us around to start falling out over nothing. Best wishes.    Steve

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 12 - 01:51 PM

For info -- I have started a new thread, referring back to this one, about the rare occasions when I think it might be appropriate to suggest "hidden meanings". It is called Hunting Hidden Meanings.

~M~

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 12 - 01:31 PM

i like singing the song

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew[East Anglian Version]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Oct 12 - 01:36 PM

So do I, Dick. It's a good song whatever interpretation you want to put on it.