Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting

Subject: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: beachcomber
Date: 21 Jan 19 - 10:47 AM

Before anybody jumps on me, let me say that I have searched the "files" here for the particular song for which I would love to have the full lyric.
I have lovely memories of an aged Grand-aunt who lived next door when I was a child and who used to mind me regularly. She would recite and sing all kinds of very old rhymes and songs to entertain me (and other young cousins )one of which had words in a chorus that included :-

"Tally-ho, tally-ho, pursue him,
the huntsmen loudly cried ....
(followed by two further lines,
the second of which would rhyme with "cried")

In the verses the huntsmen met with various individuals from the countryside who would each give varying locations in which they had seen "Sir Reynard" such as

"Among the hens and ducks"........or

"between the Reeks and Cocks"....or even

"among the weeds and rocks " etc

Does anyone remember such a song ? Those are all the snippets of memory that I have of the lyric.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 21 Jan 19 - 10:58 AM

Sounds like a version of the Three Jolly Huntsmen. See the bottom of this thread: Lyr Req: 'With my ran tan tan and my jimmy ...' (there are other threads with versions of the song too).

Your words were also requested here in 2008: Tally HO

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Jan 19 - 03:53 PM

Roud 796, most influential version with tune probably the one in Marrow Bones (new edition, p105), but there's a version in Alfred Williams' Folk Songs of the Upper Thames. The Marrow Bones version will be on the EFDSS website under the title Mick gives.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: beachcomber
Date: 22 Jan 19 - 01:08 PM

Many thanks Mick Pearce, The verses are 95% as I remember them. The chorus also co-incides, somewhat, with that of my memory, ie

"Tally-ho, tally-ho, pursue him the Huntsmen loudly cry"

but the next line is still not fitting in for me. The one given just doesn't sound right for me.

But you are amazing, Mick and Steve, thanks again, I might be able to fashion a line to go with what I now have.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 22 Jan 19 - 02:55 PM

The chorus in Alfred Williams' FSUT is not like yours beachcomber, but it might give you the last line:

With my whoop, whoop, holloa!
Come along, my brave boys,
And it's good, the huntsman cries:
With my wivvy, wivvy wink,
And my chivvy, chivvy, chink,
And over the downs we ride.

I look forward to hearing the loud cries of "wivvy, wivvy, wink" throughout the land!

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Jan 19 - 03:22 PM

In order to arrive at the version closest to the one that was sung to you we would need to know where your Grand-aunt was from. Then a look through the Roud Index for the nearest geographical location of a version would be easy enough, or even my own index.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 23 Jan 19 - 08:34 AM

Jean Ritchie recorded a version with something like your chorus:

Tally-Ho, Tally-Ho, pursue him!
The huntsman loudly cried.
A-Hi-Li, A-Hi-Lo
And a down the woods we glide

It was on Marching Across the Green Grass and other American Children Game Songs and you can get the pdf of the notes here: Folkways Liner Notes FW07702 (pdf). She calls it All Ye Jolly Huntsmen and has only 2 verses (blacksmith and miller). She says she heard her first version from a chambermaid in Dublin, but the song has changed by herself and her family.


Searches on the line "Tally-ho, tally-ho, pursue him" come up with 2 sources Popular Song Index - Patricia Pate Havlice. There's no view at archive.org for the entry, but the book can be borrowed from there. The other is for Shropshire Folklore - A Sheaf of Gleanings in a 2018 reprint. A couple of the original volumes are are archive but they don't seem to have the song.


Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: beachcomber
Date: 24 Jan 19 - 09:30 AM

Thanks again Mick, and fear not. The land in which I live may well resound to those cries but, there is a "Soft border" between us, mercifully for you, who have never been exposed to my singing !

My dear old Grandaunt, Lizzie, lived in a tiny village, as do I, but the back "parlour" of her little village shop was the venue for regular gatherings of like minded people where traditional music and singing was the glue that bound her to her friends.
Such places were known in the countryside as "Rambling houses" because that was exactly what used to happen . People would ramble from home to her shop in the evenings and entertain themselves and each other, telling stories (gossipping even ?? !)singing and playing, mainly tin whistles and melodeons, occasionally a local fiddler would also arrive. As a child I would be allowed to stay up later , for an hour or so, on those evenings.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Jan 19 - 10:18 AM

Still none the wiser!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song about Fox Hunting
From: Charley Noble
Date: 24 Jan 19 - 10:54 AM

Good work!