Fragment from Weaver and the Factory Maid

Subject: Lyric request - or any info?
From:
Date: 02 Apr 97 - 06:51 PM

When Steeleye Span recorded "The Weaver and the Factory Maid," they put the main body of the song together with a couple of other things, and I'd like very much to find information on, or more *of*, one of them.

The fragment starts and ends their recording, as I recall, and the words are something like this:

Oh, when I was a tailor, I carried my bodkin and shears
When I was a weaver, I carried my <?> and my gear
My <?> also, my small cloots and <?> in my hand
And wherever I go, there's the jolly bold weaver again.

I thought the tune for this was lovely, and it sounds as if there *ought* to be more of it. Is there? And does anyone know its history or anything more about it?

Many thanks!

Subject: RE: Fragment from
From:
Date: 02 Apr 97 - 08:18 PM

The only man I heard sing this lived in County Antrim before he died. Robert Cinnamond was his name and there is only the one verse that he knew. I have it written as:

When I was a tailor, I carried my bodkin and thread
When I was a weaver, I carried my reed and my gear
My thimble also, my small tools and reed in my hand
And whereever I'd go, there's a jolly a bold weaver again.

It's very hard to speculate, my guess is that it is a fragment of some sort because the first verse is too well constructed. It might have started off a courtship song. many do start out like that, one example being The Factory Girl, or another: The Bonny Light Horseman.

Subject: RE: Fragment from
From:
Date: 04 Apr 97 - 02:22 AM

Thank you for this. I wish I could find more of the song; my feeling is the same as yours -- that it's a fragment of something longer. Thought the tune (as I heard it on the Steeleye Span recording) was beautiful; it deserves more verses.

I think I've heard the name Robert Cinnamond before ... a well-known singer by any chance?

Thanks again!

Subject: RE: Fragment from Weaver and the Factory Maid
From: GUEST,squeeze box
Date: 12 Apr 04 - 01:34 AM

Can someone provide sheet music for that song? My ear is not good enough to pick out the tune.

Subject: RE: Fragment from Weaver and the Factory Maid
From:
Date: 22 Apr 04 - 01:40 AM

I, too, have always loved the opening and closing tune bookending Steeleye Span's "Weaver and the Factory Maid." It is very close to a tune a friend recorded for me many years ago, off of a De Danann album. I just found out the name of the tune. It's on their "A Jacket of Batteries" album.The song is "Taim I Mo Shul" and is either sung in Scots or Irish Gaelic. The two tunes are so similar that I'm sure they are connected. Does anyone know if this is true?

Subject: RE: Fragment from Weaver and the Factory Maid
From: pavane
Date: 22 Apr 04 - 02:26 AM

According to the previous thread on the song, Here,
the first verse comes from Robert Cinnamond's "When I was a tailor".

There is also a discussion of the rest of the song, of which an early version, c1680, is Wil the weaver & Charity the chambermaid