Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: leeneia
Date: 01 Sep 18 - 12:44 PM

Wearing a red petticoat when a prostitute doesn't make any sense. True, it might attract customers, but it would also tip off the police. Worse, it would invite thugs who know the prostitute might be carrying cash. Such a woman would make a perfect victim.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Thompson
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 03:52 PM

One doesn't generally dye one's skirt red to keep away the Good People; a romantic notion, but notional.
A red petticoat in relatively modern times would be the colour worn by farming people - but since it's "around the world" that our heroine is going to earn her bread, it seems unlikely that she would be followed by hordes of otherworlders from her Irish home.
This article, Spinning and Weaving: their influence on popular language and literature, discusses weaving terminology including 'rock' and 'reel', quoting some Ulster and Scottish folk songs in the notes.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,Rachel Holmen
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 03:43 PM

A reel is similar to a swift, but not the same. A swift winds a single ball of yarn. A reel is basically a standing rectangle with pegs on its corners to keep thread aligned; you use it to wind many warp threads for a weaving project, all of which should have both the same length and the same tension.

Videos of reels in use here:
https://youtu.be/Ba62vX5Zj1E
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFBSKsOnwzI

I'm pretty sure the "rack" is a spool rack, so that you can easily use different colors of thread in a warp. If you watch
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzetl5-sqS4
you will see (not very clearly photographed, I admit) a set of threads coming from behind the woman (on the left side of the image) onto her loom; the source of those threads is a spool rack.

A weaver might use a spool rack to feed thread to the reel, or directly to the loom. Reels are also called "mills".

-- Rachel Holmen, Berkeley, CA

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,Real Imitation
Date: 28 Dec 06 - 02:16 PM

'Johnny's Gone For a Soldier' has always been a favorite of mine;
esp. James Taylor's rendition. I thought it interesting that
Connie Dover's "Shule Aroon" (another favorite) shared some of the
same lyrics. I came to find out later from reading about the 2 songs
on "Contemplator" that the 'Johnny..' is a variation on "Shule".

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,Gypsy
Date: 27 Dec 06 - 03:24 PM

Hello! This is my first time at this site and I found this all toooo interesting! I have some info and a question if any one who was wondering b4 is still here.
    I read that the line about dying her peticoat red. Chances are that it is not to keep the Shee Folk at bay because in the poorer parts of Ireland they could not afford to do that so they say chants to keep them at bay.
    More likely it is to show for her loved one or to sell her body.

    Though it is probably to sell her body since the the song referes to her earning her bread; on the other hand selling her body would be unfaithful to her lover.

    I'm at a bit of a loss, can any one enlighten me?

-Gypsy

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 02:51 PM

Could have learnt it anywhere. Pretty popular song in America during the second half of the 1800s.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 12:04 AM

"there are probably so many versions of the song around."

Amazing, isn't it? Thirty or so years ago I was in the local library looking through an old book of southern African-American folklore. Pretty standard stuff. The author (whose name I can't remember) travelled through the American south in the very early years of the 20th century collecting lore about black cat bones and red-flannel conjure bags. Then he described hearing a young mother way out in the country singing a song to her baby in what the author thought was probably a survival of an old African dialect. He wrote the chorus out phonetically and dammned if it wasn't our old friend Shule Aroon. I can't imagine where the young woman learned it but it probably wasn't in Africa.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 10:56 PM

Or nonsense words ment to sound like Irish. That's rather common.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,MsBubbely
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 10:48 PM

LOL. I just started checking dates to see what order these posts belong in and found that the latest ones are 10 months old! Is anyone still here?

I started out this afternoon looking for the English translation to an Irish song sung by one of the singers on the PBS special "Celtic Woman." It reminded me of a song I learned in grade school, but may have mixed up the words in my mind with the later recording by Peter, Paul and Mary that a would have heard just a couple of years later. Which is why there are probably so many different versions of the song around.

As to the "nonsense" words, they are probably mostly garbled versions of Irish words unfamiliar to non-Irish speakers. It's like a prolonged game of "telephone."

Subject: "SUIL A GRA"
From: GUEST,MALCOLM XERXES™
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 10:04 PM

FRI. OCT. 29/2004/22:03 E.S.T.

    My own first exposure to "SUIL A GRA" was in a videoclip performed by ANITA BEST & PAMELA MORGAN, so my own bias is toward their version of the lyrics, which I came to this site to seek after.

    Does anyone have their version of the lyrics, please? I would buy it @ the record shop if I could find it, but nobody in Toronto seems to know what I am talking about....

"…Be seeing you!"
MALCOLM XERXES
Stuntman/Actor FINNEGAN'S SQUAD™ http://www.malcolmxerxes.com

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Willa
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 04:17 PM

Thanks, Big Tim. This continues to be a fascinating thread.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Big Tim
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 05:09 AM

According to Padraigin Ni Uallachain, singer, writer, folklorist, historian, wife of Len Graham, and native Irish speaker;

"The dyeing of petticoats indicated that the woman indicated herself as betrothed: it was a sign of loyalty to her absent lover".

She also says that the song is a Jacobite one, so "Johnny's Gone for a Soldier" - that is, the Wild Geese, is not too far off the mark.

She also explains all the parts of the spinning wheel, and Kim C above certainly on the right track. Padraigin's book is "A Hidden Ulster: people, songs and traditions of Oriel [south Ulster/north Leinster]". The book was published last year by Four Courts Press, Dublin, and it's a 500 page treasure-trove, worth the money for the photographs alone.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Art Thieme
Date: 24 Nov 02 - 01:26 AM

and I sure did like the version of the song as done by JANET SMITH on a West Coast copilation LP of songs by people hanmging out in Berkeley, CA in the 1960s. She was or is an extremely tasteful guitarist and song arranger.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 02:11 AM

Whoooops, forgot a verse:

I've sailed the seas and I've trod the shore,
Where Englishmen never went before,
And I'll never shun wild women any more,
Come-a-bibble-ala-doo-shi-do-ree.

(Art)

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 01:57 AM

On my second LP for the Patons at Folk Legacy --- called ON THE WILDERNESS ROAD (still available as a custom cassette from them) I included a version of this song based on the one done by Chubby Parker who was a regular on the WLS Barn Dance radio show out of Chicago. I left out the racist verses and put in a couple from "Butternut Hill". Mine was called "Bibble-Ala-Doo". Scott Alarik has been singing it in recent shows---complete with some of my old jokes.

-------------------------------------------------------

Come and listen to my song,
It's awful pretty and it won't take long,
I sung it all the way from here to Hong Kong,
Come-a-bibble-ala-doo-shi-do ree.

I'm gonna buy me an old gray hoss,
The Alleghenies I will cross,
Gonna find the true love that I lost,
Come-a-bibble...

CHORUS)
Shoo-ri, shoo-ri, shoo-ri roo,
Sugar racka, sugar racka, shoo-ri-roo,
When I saw my little bobolink,
Come-a-bibble-ala-doo-shi do-ree.

I was down on a South Sea isle,
Folks all greet you with a smile,
I wrote back home, well, I think I'll stay a while,
Come-a-bibble...

Dad went out in a Ford machine,
He dropped a match in the gasoline,
He went so high that he's never been seen,
Come-a-bibble...

Man came from monkey Darwin said,
Where women came from I never have read,
But I know where some are goin' when they're dead,
Come-a-bibble...

Here I sit on Buttermilk Hill,
Here I sit and cry my fill,
Every tear would turn a mill,
Come-a-bibble...

My true love has gone to France,
There her fortune to advance,
When she gets home we're gonna have a little dance,
Come-a-bibble-ala-doo-shi-do-ree.

(Art Thieme)

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: masato sakurai
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 12:43 AM

"The White Cockade" (2nd stanza) by Robert Burns is:

I'll sell my rock, my reel, my tow,
My gude gray mare and hawkit cow;
To buy mysel a tartan plaid,
To follow the boy wi' the White Cockade.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 10:20 PM

If KimC returns. There are versions with clock, which my wife (a spinner and weaver) tells me is possible. She has an antique winder with a "clicker" (indicates a length of yarn) which apparently has been called a "clock" by some weavers. She accepts rock- she has tried drop spindles. The Navajo have a version adapted from the Spanish, but few use it now. She has pottery ones used in pre-historic Peru. Also in the Google is a version with rack, which is also possible. My wife has one in addition to a reel and the clock, which is small (and used as an ornament). Rod is the only one which seems unlikely.

In addition to Buttermilk Hill, There are versions with Butternut Hill (butternut, a hardwood, was once used in American furniture), Beacon Hill and Putnam's Hill. As far as the age of these tunes, I can't find any evidence of Shule Agra versions in America before the Civil War although Irish were here from the late 1600s. The songs may have been here, but evidence? Would "Butter--- Hill" versions be associated more with the Centenary year 1876? Or even later?

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 02:22 AM

Sorry, didn't read the entire thread, but red is traditionally the color of the Little Folk or indicating Magick in Ireland. See refernces to white animals with red ears, or red animals.

Women wore petticoats of red and allowed a little of them to show to keep the little folk at bay. The "attentinos" of the Wee Folk were not always desireable.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 01:24 AM

Allan C writes/sings "Shule go dheen durrus" Siúl go dtí an doras - walk to the door - sounds more correct to me (siúl go doras would be walk to a door) but the latter is more often sung so I think you can take your choice.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 06:02 PM

Kim C, you mentioned that the reel is sometimes called a "weasel" and will make a "pop" sound after so many turns. Sounds like you were hinting at this being the source for "Pop Goes the Weasel." It's an interesting thought. I was pretty much sold on the explanation in this wonderful Pop Goes the Weasel thread from several months ago, that it comes from British slang for selling or pawning one's work kit to get needed funds. Maybe there's a connection there. More food for thought, courtesy of the Mudcat Cafe! (It's amazing what I can come up with when I'm trying not to work...)

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 08:20 AM

Am I looking at a different variation, or did you leave out something on the third line?

Shule go dheen durrus

I have to add that I have only a marginal idea of what these words mean or whether dheen is even important.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 03:32 AM

The chorus is pronounced (roughly, and I'm just adding the other lines to that Noreen phoneticised:

Shule, shule, shule, aroon,
Shule guh sucker oggus shule guh kewn,
Shule guh durrus oggus aylig lyumm,
Iss guh dayren thoo, a voorneen, slawn.

Oh, by the way, the biz about dying the petticoats a burning red and around the world earning her bread - I think the suggestion is that she's going to do so in an unchaste manner unsuitable to a correct Irish girl.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 06:03 PM

I have tried the Fada thing and nothing happens. Maybe it is because I'm not Irish?

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: finnmacool
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 05:59 PM

There is a song in the Digital Tradition Songbook which is based on Siúl a Rún taken from Folk Songs Out of Wisconsin,called, I'll Sell My Hat,Ill Sell my Coat, with some attempt at the Gaelic words e.g. Schule I rack-a-shack, schule I barbecue, When I sell my salla balla eel, come bibble in the lush- eye lorry. Presumably someone heard the song being sung in Gaelic and this is their attempt. It reveals the durability and appeal of folksongs.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Jon W.
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 05:56 PM

Thanks, I found Alison's phonetic rendition in the earlier thread.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: finnmacool
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 05:46 PM

To Brian ,If you want the Fada you just ctrl and alt at the one time and press the letter you wish to have the fada ínclúdéd ok?

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: finnmacool
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 05:36 PM

To Brian ,If you want the Fada you just ctrl and alt at the one time and press the letter you wish to have the fada ínclúdéd ok?

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Megan L
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 04:01 PM

Many examples of the Rock can be found in the pre historic sites around Orkney, these early ones were litterly a beach stone with a hole worn in the centre and used for spinning

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 01:53 PM

I suppose it should be noted that there are already many other threads about this song and its sisters, including "Johhny Has Gone For A Soldier". Just enter either of the two words of the subject song of this thread in the "Digital Tradition and Forum Search" box near the top of the page. There are some excellent discussions there. I believe it was our own dear Alison who first posted the phonetical version of the song in one of those threads.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Noreen
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 01:28 PM

Iss go djay too, moh vorneen, slawn

is how I sing it, Jon W, but it will be slightly different with Irish from different areas of the country. Good luck with singing this beautiful song.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Jon W.
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 12:52 PM

This is the kind of thread that keeps me coming back to Mudcat. I love the "coat of steel", it fits a lot better in the spirit of the song than "sword of steel."

Can someone post a good phonetic pronuciation of the Irish chorus posted by Guest JTT? My wife loves this song and I'd like to work up a version we can do together, but neither of us can read the Irish. We've got some good recordings of it but I'm kind of particular to at least pronounce things correctly, and it's hard to do so just from listening to an unfamiliar language.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 11:50 AM

Thanks, Sheila. I can picture what you speak of now that I understand it better. I love the expression.

Thanks to all who have contributed so much to this thread. I certainly understand this aspect of the song much better. You guys are the greatest!

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: sheila
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 11:22 AM

Allan C. - I know niddy-noddy as a Scots word, meaning pretty much what it sounds like! As a spinner's term, I've only seen it in the US. A niddy-noddy is a stick, with a cross piece at each end. The cross pieces are at right angles to each other, and the nid-nod pattern used when skeining the yarn, is what gives the niddy-noddy its name.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 09:28 AM

"niddy-noddy" - I like it! Does that expression mean the same as "whatchmacallit"? What part of the world does it come from?

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: sheila
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 09:19 AM

I've always thought of the reel/clockreel/niddy-noddy as being used for skeining the yarn off the spindle. The swift is generally for holding skeins of yarn after being washed and dyed, so that they can more easily be wound onto shuttles for weaving, or into balls for knitting. Most stationary reels are vertical, and most swifts are horizontal.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Elise
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 04:11 AM

Some words from a spinner, here. The first Sunday after Twelfth Night us spinners get together to celebrate Rock Day, which is the day the spinners traditionally go back to work after the Christmas holiday.

It sounds like the rock being the distaff is correct from the scholarly information above. I've always been told the rock referred to the wheel itself. In German, I am told, the wheel is referred to as rocken. I've always been told that is the origion. Don't know, only gotten it by word of mouth.

A reel is also sometimes called a swift. I've got a nifty plastic one from Japan, but I've seen ones made out of whale bone. Modern ones of quality are made of wood. Pop goes the weasle also refers to this, as noted above. A weasle is also called a click reel, as it pops or clicks when so many yards have been wound on.

A distaff is what you use to hold your fiber so you can spin is. Distaffs in my experience are mostly used to hold flax, a plant fiber which when spun is called linen. A distaff is neccessary when spinning very long fibers, but not as neccessary when spinning wool, which can easily be held in the hand.

Whew!

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 02 Feb 01 - 02:40 AM

Umm...I'm no expert. But in Gleann Cholmcille a couple of years ago I was visiting the famine village there, and one of the locals who was showing me around showed me the spinning-wheel and rock; perhaps the terminology depends on whether you're using a distaff and spindle or the new-tech spinning-wheel?

Incidentally, I've heard it sung:

"I'll dye my petticoats a burning red
"And round the world I'll earn my bread
"Until my parents shall wish me dead
"Is go dtearn tu, a mhuirnin, slan"

The chorus (I'm not putting in the sinte fada, since they come out funny here) goes "Siul, siul, siul, a run, siul go socair agus siul go chiuin, siul go doras agus ealaigh dom, is go dtearn tu, a mhuirnin, slan" and means "Walk, walk, walk, darling, walk softly and walk silently, walk to the door and return to me, and may you go, my darling, safely".

"A run" literally means "o secret", and "a mhuirnin" means "o darling". Irish has some peculiar love-handles; another, "a chuisle" (pronounced acooshla) means "o pulse", or maybe "o artery" depending on your usage; the idea is that someone's so close to you that they're the blood in your heart and the pulse that sends it on.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: alison
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:35 PM

thanks for the explanations... very informative thread....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: sheila
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 08:24 PM

Years ago, I used to give spinning demonstrations. I have always understood the rock to be the distaff, and the reel, that on which the yarn was wound. Those, and the wheel, would have been important possessions when country people still produced most of their own clothing.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 06:48 PM

It was because you put a "b" instead of a "br" after her hand: very useful information, though!

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Stewie
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 06:29 PM

I think all that bold came because I forgot to close with a right angle bracket the 'br' at the end of the first quoted line - which must have turned it into a 'bold' command. Sorry.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Stewie
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 06:22 PM

In his glossary, Professor Child defines 'rock' or 'roke' as 'distaff'. The first 2 meanings for 'distaff' in the Macquarie are: 1. a staff with a cleft end, formerly used for holding the wool, flax etc from which the thread was drawn in spinning by hand; 2. an analagous part of a spinning wheel for holding flax to be spun. The second conforms with what Kim posted above.

In versions of 'Baron of Brackley', Brackley's wife wants to arm the women with 'rocks' to shame Brackley into action:

She called on her marys, they came to her hand
Cries, bring me your rocks, lassies, we will them command

She called on her women and bade them in
'Tack a' yer rocks, lasses, we will them comman

But lasses tak down your rocks and we will defend

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Alice
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 01:30 PM

It was my understanding, too, that the words referred to selling all her tools that related to spinning.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 01:10 PM

Good point; knowing next-to-nothing about spinning, I had assumed that you both meant the same thing!  I found Rex's pump drill analogy helpful, though, as I have one somewhere.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Kim C
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 01:02 PM

Glad to help --- but don't take my words as gospel because I could be wrong!. ;) Guest pointed out that these terms mean something similar but different where he/she is from. At least we do know we're talking about some kind of spinning equipment.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,Brian
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 12:44 PM

A very nice disscussion on "Siuil a Ruin" A woman I know who went to school in Galway tells me that dyeing the petticoat red refers to the red petticoats which were worn in connemara. Mairin sings the only verse in Irish I have come across. She tells me she learned it in school. Dath me fhein mo chota ban agus siulfadh me an domhan lan no go bhfaigh me marbh e no slan is go de tu mo mhuirnin slan etc....sorry I don't have fadas or dictionary to check spelling. Tantilising, but that's all she knew.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Noreen
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 12:27 PM

Thanks for the link to the pp&m words, Allan. Interesting. I learned a song at school (in England) called Buttermilk Hill, with that verse in, but I don't remember there being a chorus.

I heard something similar to that chorus on Aly Bain's 'Downhome' programme, sung by someone from the Appalachians, I think. I surmised that the Irish words had lost their literal meaning when heard in America by non-Irish speakers, and the 'nonsense' words had taken their place.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Rex
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 11:53 AM

Yes, the drop spindle! Often the flywheel part was made of stone. As was the almost identical pump drill. It may be as JTT said a hexagonal cage (corruption of rack?). But a drop spindle is something I can relate to.

Rex

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 11:37 AM

Kim's information seems to solve the problem.  "rod" would be a mis-hearing of "rock", presumably.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 11:15 AM

Peter, Paul and Mary's version can be found here:

http://www.peterpaulandmary.com/music/f-02-02.htm

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 11:12 AM

The rock is a kind of hexagonal gadget on which you wind your wool as you spin it, in Ireland anyway. The reel is the part the wool spins from.

Incidentally, in Ireland the next line is normally sung as "I'll sell my only spinning-wheel, to buy my love a *coat* of steel", though abroad it's become more militant and is sold to finance a sword.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Noreen
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 11:05 AM

Kim, thank you very much, that makes sense.

Allan, there is no mention of a baby in the original and I've not heard the pp&m version.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Robby
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 10:58 AM

AllanC,
I thought that I had seen the line "Oh, my baby...You're father was my only love" years ago in a book titled "10,000 years of Irish poetry" (I believe that was the title), edited by Kathleen Hoagland. But, my memory my be going hazy on this point, I've known that part of the song for years.
Robby

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 10:53 AM

Here is a site with pictures of drop spindling:

http://www.monroehistoricsociety.org/spinning.html

So, is the "rock" the large disk at the bottom?

Could the "rod" from the song be the shaft of this?

If all the terms in the song related to this process, it would make a lot of sense (to me, at least).

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Jon W.
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 10:40 AM

That was great, Kim. I recently saw a demonstration of drop spinning by a representative of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers museum. She said that the female immigrants from the British Isles, particularly the Welch and Scots, would spin as they walked across the plains to Utah using these simple but effective devices. The whole time she was standing and talking she was spinning away without giving it a second thought.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 10:24 AM

Wow, Kim! You have truly cleared up a lot of questions with your post. Thank you so much!

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Kim C
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 10:07 AM

A rock, as I understand it, is the whorl part of a drop spindle - the part that spins around. Drop spindles go back thousands of years (the spinning wheel was only developed about 500 years ago) and continued to be used by people in more rural parts of Europe because you can literally walk and spin at the same time. It's documented that women in the Shetlands tended sheep while knitting or drop spindling - today we call it multi-tasking! Even today women in South America use the drop spindle. I have five of my own and love to spin although I rarely have time for it anymore.

Most spindles now are nicely crafted and have well-balanced wooden whorls, but in the old days a rock or stone whorl was very common and these have come up in excavations all over the world. Some people still craft spindles with stone whorls, but there's a reason they call it a DROP spindle (hahaha) and such things are easily broken.

A reel, I think, is what we call nowadays a yarn winder, the thing you wind the yarn onto after spinning so you can skein it up. It has also been called a "weasel," and some make a loud pop after so many turns.

Anyway someone who had to spin her own stuff would have likely had a rock, a reel, and a spinning wheel, and all would have been quite valuable to her.

KFC

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:48 AM

I understood that this song was to have been sung for either an existing baby or for one that was on the way. However, I don't see a direct reference to either in the gaelic.

Perhaps the "Oh my baby, oh my love...Your father was my only love" was purely an invention of PP&M; but I thought I had seen it elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:45 AM

Forms found in the DT and Forum include "rod...reel", "frock...wheel", "flax...wheel", "rock...reel" and "rack...reel".  Of these, "rock" belongs to the earliest example, provided by Bruce Olson, from an English broadside of around 1660; it seems to have been a Scottish song at that time.  Blowed if I know what kind of rock it might have been, mind...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: alison
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:40 AM

what child?

I never got a reference to a child..... is there another verse?

yep its supposed to be about the wild geese.. who went off to fight......

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:34 AM

I have heard of people selling their own tombstones, I wondered if this were the case. I also wondered if I were being too literal about the rod and reel.

Also, wasn't the idea behind the sales that of buying what was needed to keep him safe? The guy was heading out to France (presumably to fight as a mercenary) because he was having to leave his homeland forever. This was because his life was in danger because he had been on the losing side of the national wars (if I understand the story correctly). The woman was in sorrow because it was unlikely that she would see the father of her child ever again.

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Noreen
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:31 AM

I never thought of it as fishing gear...I have

"I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel
I'll sell my only spinning wheel
To buy my love a coat of steel...

Thay are obviously important, valuable things to her. I'll have to think! Good question, Allan!

Noreen

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: nutty
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:30 AM

I always understood that both were in some way connected with spinning and would be very important to a woman
I do know that the line -- I'll dye my petticoat crimson red meant that she was prepared to survive by way of prostitution if necessary - red petticoats being worn by loose women

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Mikey joe
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:28 AM

In the version I sing Allan it's

"I'll sell my rod, I'll sell my reel
I'll sell my only spinning wheel
for to by my love a sword of steel
Suil, Suil, Suil a Ruin etc etc"

i think the significance allan may be in the time the song was written. This would have been a time without supermarkets, designer clothes shops etc. The food you ate you grew/caught yourself. Your clothes you made yourself. So she was willing to go without food and clothes to protect her lover by giving him a sword of steel. I'm not sure of the significance of rock. it's not in my version. It may be to do with her rocky land or home which she also sells. The land in the west of ireland is poor and rocky.

Any it's only my opinion right or wrong

Mj

Subject: RE: Help: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: alison
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:23 AM

I reckon they were all things that were very important to her (even necessities)...... rock to grind flour(perhaps) or wash clothes, fishing stuff to get food... she's willing to give everything for this git who's run off and left her to go and fight.... daft woman *grin*... the things we do for love eh????

slainte

alison

Subject: Shule Aroon: sell my rock, rod, reel
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Feb 01 - 09:15 AM

"I'll sell my rock..."

What rock is she selling?

"I'll sell my rod, I'll sell my reel"

Is she selling her fishing gear?

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