Help: Four and Twenty Ponies

Subject: Four and Twenty Ponies
From: GUEST,Heely
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 11:23 AM

Help! Does anyone know the heritage or more verses to "The Smuggler" Song? My Grammy brought it to America via Australia from either Scotland or Wales. I think that it must be Scottish. It goes... "If you wake at midnight and hear the horses feet, don't be pulling back the blind or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie. Watch the wall my darling as the gentlemen ride by.

If you do as you've been told likely there's a chance, you'll receive a lovely dolly all the way from France with a gown of valencense and a velvet hood, a present from the gentlemen along 0'being good."

Subject: RE: Help: Four and Twenty Ponies
From: GUEST,Heely
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 11:27 AM

Sorry, this sent twice. The refrain is . . . "Four and twenty ponies trotting through the dark, ....baccy for the clerk, laces for the ladies, letters for the spy, just watch the wall my darling as the gentlemen go by." I'm missing some words as you see. Does anyone know it?

Subject: RE: Help: Four and Twenty Ponies
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 11:38 AM

Hi, Heely. It appears to be a Kipling poem, lots of information at this page.

Subject: RE: Help: Four and Twenty Ponies
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 11:49 AM

It's in the DT as A PRESENT FROM THE GENTLEMEN - another of Dick's misleading titles.

It's a poem by Rudyard Kipling. I'm not sure if the usual tune is by Peter Bellamy or if it's earlier.

Subject: RE: Help: Four and Twenty Ponies
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 01:05 PM

Here's the other (simultaneous) thread on this question: click this.

John Roberts and Tony Barrand did this song on their cd titled "A Present from the Gentlemen" (Golden Hind Music 1992, GHMCD101). Their setting is from Peter Bellamy.

Subject: RE: Help: Four and Twenty Ponies
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 12:16 PM

Kipling's Title is "A Smuggler's Song" incidently.

Subject: RE: Help: Four and Twenty Ponies
From: E.T.
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:40 PM

I always heard it as "You'll be gi'en a dainty doll, all the way from France - with a cap of Valency (valenciennes, a type of lace)" - more logical, since at the time lace was a VERY profitable smuggling item - ladies coming from the Continent would starve their "muff dogs" to make them smaller and then wrap them in lace and tuck them back in the muff where they wouldn't be inspected.

Yeah, it sounds a bit bizarre, but the story lingers and it's just weird enough to have been true once. ET