Origins: The Rambling Siuler

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 05:31 PM

Many thanks, Martin!

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 05:28 PM

OK. The Irish etymologist Diarmuid O Muirithe (who, coincidentally, died a few days ago) discusses the word in one of his books. He quotes several English/Scottish references from OED - with the earliest from 1736. He says that Oxford mentions the possible connection to Irish "siúl" - but that it remains unconvinced. He, on the other hand, is quite happy that it is indeed of Irish origin. And he's usually right ...

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 05:21 PM

My 1897 Slang Dictionary (no author listed) has "shool: to saunter idly, to become a vagabond, to beg rather than work" and gives a reference to a book by the Scottish author Smollett, published 1747.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 05:15 PM

Well, the examples push it back to days when spelling wasn't all that standard... Let me have another look at some sources.

Regards
p.s. substitution of "sailor" and "soldier" is obvious enough, I suppose, as people try to make sense of it.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 05:12 PM

Thank you, Martin. Indeed it is in Partridge -- also rendered as 'shuler', which is even nearer: tho oddly enough I couldn't find this usage on google, which wouldn't believe I didn't mean something to do with "school".

But, even then, why is the spelling altered for the song; which, I repeat, alters it to a word defined only, in OED but nowhere else I could find, as "sieve-maker"?

Still a bit mystified; but less so, thanks to Martin's & Fergie's helpful suggestions.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 04:03 PM

The usual English slang dictionaries (old and new) have "shooler" as "beggar, vagabond" etc. Which is not to say that Fergie's Irish derivation is wrong - but just to show that it has been in English for a long time. Partridge (Penguin) quotes an example from the 19C. Irish author Carleton - which is certainly consistent with a possible Irish origin.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 03:58 PM

I dunno - the tune just sounds a bit the same. john Kelly calls it the valiant sailor.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 03:07 PM

Ah -- thank you Fergie. That does make sense. But I wonder how it got into this English song; and why no annotation that I can find anywhere -- in Roud or wherever -- even attempts to define this word, which is certainly obscure to English ears.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: Fergie
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 03:02 PM

Siúl = walk(as in Siúil, siúil, siúil, a rúin = walk, walk, walk my love).

Siúlóir = walker

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: Fergie
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 02:46 PM

I suggest that is the Irish word Siúlóir which means a walker or rambler

Fergus

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 01:37 PM

Certainly related to all those rambling soldiers & sailors -- tho iirc it is a matter of some dispute as to which of those preceded which -- but sfaics appears to predate those. Also related to those kings, dukes, squires & such who go off disguised as beggars or tinkers, screwing young women all over the place, as in The Barley Straw, some variants of the Beggar/Gaberlunzie Man, &c.

But where you find much connection with Polly On The Shore, though, Al -- which is about a pressed seaman dying in battle who seems to me to have little in common with these seductive rambling servicemen?

My question still stands -- what has a sieve-maker to do with the discourse anyhow?

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 01:13 PM

I guess its the song Polly on the Shore. it always seemed a great pity Davy Graham never got together with a good traditional singer - john Kelly springs to mind - he does a great version accompanied by a harmonium.

DG called it rambling soldier.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 11:19 AM

Hate to seem ignorant. But what is a 'siuler', here, please? Seems to be a sort of beggar in the DT version, as whom the machinating seducer disguises himself; but cannot find the word in this connotation elsewhere. Can find nothing by googling except this song; nor in my Chambers. All I can find in the full OED is that it is an obsolete form of a word meaning a sieve-maker. Why should one of those ramble in guise of a beggar, or attract the attention of the opposite sex, particularly?

Mystified.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: GUEST,John Owen - Hungry Horse Folk Club, Ellesmer
Date: 14 Jul 14 - 10:11 AM

The Mighty Doonan Family Band do a super up tempo version of this song on their latest CD.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 02:23 PM

Jonathan, 'The Rambling Suiler' Roud 7972, only seems to be known from the Sam Henry version which was adapted by Andy Irvine.
See Songs of the People, Huntington, p268
    Aiming for the Heart, Irvine, p32.

Without checking closely the note I have written down with my song notes is 'Similar story to 'The Gaberlunzie Man', said to be the original of 'The Rambling Soldier' which in turn gave rise to 'The Rambling Sailor' and various other 'Ramblings'.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: alex s
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 11:05 AM

This was done very well by the Mathews Brothers, but I don't think they recorded it.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 08:45 AM

Thanks, John. It sounded "recent" - but not "revival" recent.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 08:20 AM

Andy Irvine adapted the song from the version in Sam Henry's 'Songs of the People' collection. He got it from the original columns in the Coleraine (Northern Ireland) newspaper, The Northern Constitution. The columns have since been edited in a book by Gale Huntington and Lani Herrmann - this is still available (print on demand) from University of Georgia Press. The Rambling Suiler was also published in short versions in at least two Dublin printed 8-page song books in the early nineteenth-century.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: GUEST,Graham Bradshaw
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 05:08 AM

There's a great version on the Shrewsbury FF website - www.shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk - video of Andy Irvine singing with Dervish.

Check it out

Subject: Origins: The Rambling Siuler
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 08:22 PM

Planxty recorded this on "After the Break."

Where did it come from?