Help: What is a Monigan?

Subject: What is a Monigan?
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 07:54 AM

From the liner notes on Steeleye's "Hark The Village Wait" (on "The Hills of Greenmore"):

"A mighty song! But a little known one. This saga of a hare hunt and its variant 'The Granemore Hare' hail from around Keady in Co. Armagh. In the song the only one to get the rough end of the stick is the 'pussy'. Do we detect a Monigan in the hunt?"

Please help an ignorant foreigner - what exactly is a Monigan?

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 08:48 AM

s far as I have been able to find out Monigan is a family name, and aside from a couple of peculiar local notions has never been used for any object. So I suspect the line is a local reference to someone by that name.

Not authoritative, though!

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 08:55 AM

I suspect "Monigan" should have been "Mondegreen." Mondegreen is a term that has been explained and discussed many times in Mudcat. Click here for an example.

So I think the writer is trying to say that the word was originally something else, and was changed to "pussy" because someone misheard it.

I'm not familiar with the song, so I can't guess what word the writer had in mind, but you might be able to figure it out.

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 10:03 AM

Here's my theory. There's a mondegreen in the song, but I'm not sure where. The line "In the field fleet stubble this pussy did lie" sounds pretty strange. What's a "field fleet stubble?" Did it once sound something like "in the field she did stumble and this pussy did lie?" Just guessing. I believe "pussy" is a common name for the fox.

I also believe that the term "Monagin" is a term for a Mondegreen in a fox hunging song ("Monagin, moffagin"), or it is on this recording. It's an intentional mondegreen of the word "mondegreen."

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 10:12 AM

And a "monagin" is mainly a misspelling. I meant "Monagan," a mondegreen for "Mondagreen."

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 10:17 AM

Thanks all for your ideas!

Jeri, I've always thought that line was "in the fields of wheat stubble this pussy did lie/And Rory and Charlie, they both passed her by". You can never be sure with Terry Woods, though:-) Well, think I'll go hunting mondegreens now...eluvsive little creatures. (Any comments, ideas etc. very welcome.)

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 10:19 AM

Duh - I meant "elusive". Hope Santa brings me a spell checker for Christmas this year.

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 10:24 AM

"Puss" and "Pussy" in this song refers to the hare; the term was commonly used by hare-hunters, so there is no mis-hearing involved.  I've always rather assumed that Monigan was somebody Terry Woods knew, and that he was having a wee joke at his expense involving another common meaning of the word "pussy".  Conjecture only, of course; a deliberate double-mondegreen is an interesting thought.

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 10:46 AM

I think I'm having a massive attack of the stupids. I have a gig in a couple of hours, which could be interesting.

In addition to explaining how I misspelled MONI-flippin'-GAN and managing to misspell it again in the process, I got the wrong animal as "pussy." I meant hare, not fox.

Thanks for the correction, Malcolm. I promise to be careful and not make eny moor misteaks.
...I feel 100% positive that I could possibly be right about the double mondegroan, though.

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 11:41 AM

Jeri, love your double mondegroan! Btw, I also thought that it was a fox, not a hare (Thanks for getting that right,Malcolm!) , and got confused as to why they kept talking about hares all the time. Massive attack of the stupids, eh? You're not alone, it seems. Good luck for your gig!

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 11:56 AM

Kermit the Frog: "It's not easy being mondegreen."

Yes, but at least the coloration protects them somewhat from predators.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 12:31 PM

Oooooh...shy little mondegreens, hiding in the underbrush...cute, Susan! (Sorry, I'm a little silly at the moment;-)

Subject: Correction: Reynard the Fox^^
From: Snuffy
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 08:08 PM

REYNARD THE FOX in the DT has the following as the last two lines:

I give to you, Sir Monaghan, my whips, spurs and cap
For you jumped hedge and ditches and they look so ragged.

The version I have on CD by Sweeneys Men actually ends "ne'er looked for a gap" rather than "they look so ragged", which seems to make more sense to me.

Wassail! V ^^

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 10:19 AM

That's interesting, Snuffy! Nice food for thoughts here.

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: CharlieA
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 10:33 AM

another suggestion is that it is a corruption of Morrigan - she was one of the 3 goddesses in celtic mythology - she was the mistress of the hunt. I could easily be wrong in this tho. Cxxx

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 10:58 AM

Morrigan?  Not even the smallest chance, I'm afraid!

Subject: RE: Help: What is a Monigan?
From: CharlieA
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 11:03 AM

ok fair enough - worth a try tho. *g* Cxxx