Lyr Add: A Fairy Story (Shay Healy)

Subject: Lyr Add: A FAIRY STORY (from Brobdingnagian Bards)
From: Jacqk
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 10:54 AM

Looking through my iTunes songlist, and realized that I don't know the author to this song. From looking at the context of the CD, it seems to have made, or is making the rounds at Renaissance Fairs. The version I have was sung by the Brobdingnagian Bards, on their CD "A Faire to Remember". The info below comes from their website. Anyone recognize this one?


A Fairy Story
From: A Faire To Remember

words and music by unknown

In days of old in a kingdom bold, there lived a fearsome dragon.
And the King he was in great distress and the countries spirits flagoned.
Until one day there came a knight, he was handsome, bold, and charming.
And he slew the dragon with his sword with a smile that was so disarming.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, a smile that was so disarming.

Said the King I wish to know your name, but the knight said do not bother.
For the name of a knight of the realm says he, is the same as any other.
Said the King tonight in my daughter's bed you shall take your leisure.
And she'll reward you for your deed, with a night of exhausting pleasure.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, anight of exhausting pleasure.

One daughter she had raven hair, a maiden young and chaste.
And she slept all night in the pale moonlight, naked to the waist.
The other daughter she was fair, the fairest in the town.
And she slept all night in the pale moonlight naked from her small waist down.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, naked from her small waist down.

Well the knight he spends many hour behind the castle wall.
But the ending to my story dear, isn't what it seems at all.
For in neither bed of neither maid was he repaid for his glory.
But he slept all night with the King instead for this is a fairy story.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, for this is a Fairy story.

KEY D

verse:
D-A7-D G D A7 D
G D G A7
G D D A7
G-D-G A7 D A7 D

chorus:
G-D-G A7 D A7 D

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: Amos
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 11:36 AM

Funny little ditty, written in the late 2oth or early 21st century for sure. The use of the word "flagoned" to mean "flagged" (which wouldn't rhyme) indicates it was written by an American. I don't believe there has ever been a verb "to flagon" (except in the sense to continue flagging!). I have occasionally been wrong, though.

A

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 12:59 PM

Not that it matters, but it'd rhyme about as well with the second line

"And the King he was in great distress and the country's spirits flaggin'"

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: belter
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 03:51 PM

I heard this about 10 years ago at a SCA gathering. I had kind of assumed that it was a sca thing.

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 04:15 PM

I first heard this in the mid sixties. It was popular as a camp song in scouts.

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 04:43 PM

As in the Boy Scouts of America, MMario? The organization that waged several court battles over the right to exclude gays?

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 04:57 PM

But "camp" was OK?

Subject: 'A Fairy Story' Song. Anyone know more about it?
From: John M.
Date: 11 May 05 - 03:32 PM

              1.  Do you sing "A Fairy Story"? 
              2.  If yes, when and where did you learn it?
              3.  Would you be willing to sing it for folklore purposes over the phone?

Any help is appreciated.

Sincerely,

John Mehlberg
[e-mail]
~
Afternoons:  314.647.3883
Evenings:     314.381.0492
~
My website: www.immortalia.com
~

A FAIRY STORY
(Words & Music by Unknown)

In days of old in a kingdom bold, there lived a fearsome dragon.
And the King he was in great distress and the countries spirits flagoned.
Until one day there came a knight, he was handsome, bold, and charming.
And he slew the dragon with his sword with a smile that was so disarming.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no, a smile that was so disarming.

Said the King I wish to know your name, but the knight said do not bother.
For the name of a knight of the realm says he, is the same as any other.
Said the King tonight in my daughter's bed you shall take your leisure.
And she'll reward you for your deed, with a night of exhausting pleasure.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no, a night of exhausting pleasure.

One daughter she had raven hair, a maiden young and chaste.
And she slept all night in the pale moonlight, naked to the waist.
The other daughter she was fair, the fairest in the town.
And she slept all night in the pale moonlight naked from her small waist down.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no, naked from her small waist down.

Well the knight he spends many hour behind the castle wall.
But the ending to my story dear, isn't what it seems at all.
For in neither bed of neither maid was he repaid for his glory.
But he slept all night with the King instead for this is a fairy story.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no,for this is a Fairy story.

Notes: This text is from the A Faire To Remember CD by the Brobdingnagian Bards.  The earliest printed example of this song is from The Blackthorn Bible 1975.
 

• Brobdingnagian Bards
  • A Faire To Remember
    • A Fairy Story  Time: 1:31
• The Naughty Nymphs!
  • Bube's Live!
    • Fairy Story  Time: 1:42

   

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 11 May 05 - 03:38 PM

I have sung it in the past -

Molly and the Tinker recorded it as well.

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: GUEST,Tinker in Chicago
Date: 11 May 05 - 04:28 PM

Yeah, Leo, and we in turn learned it from the Bawdy Beggar Girls, a duet that no longer exists (Jacquie Manning went on to be half of Small Potatoes and Marilyn Middleton-Pollack went on to some degree of recognition performing on BBC shows). I do believe there is a known author, though, because we stopped singing it once I had found out who it was (copyrights, y'know). I then forgot completely.

Gee it's fun gettin' old.

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: jeffp
Date: 12 May 05 - 08:07 AM

Robbie O'Connell credits Fairy Story to Shay Healy/Oisin Music IMRO/MCPS.

This if from his CD, Humorous Songs Live on Celtic Musdic CBCM2000.

jeffp

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 12 May 05 - 09:35 AM

There's a James Cotton LP "Pure Cotton" with a jive-talk rendition of "Little Red Riding Hood" which ends with the same gag--the wood-cutter marries the wolf because it's a fairy tale.

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: LadyJean
Date: 12 May 05 - 11:59 PM

I heard it, first, as a joke, in the early Seventies. The King has three daughters, The Ugly Daughter (Bleaaaahhhh!)
                The Nice Looking Daughter (Ehhhhh!)
                The Beautiful Daughter (Awwwwwwwww!)
Whom he offers to the knight. The names and descriptive sounds are repeated several times, as the knight slays the dragon, returns to the king, and refuses the daughters, saying, "I want you!" And that's the end of this fairy tale.
Like the song about the spinster and her tomcat, or the song about the scotsman and the blue ribbon, this one was born of somebody's funny story.

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 May 05 - 01:16 AM

The fearsonme drigon of old

Aged to a dragone not so sold.


But the bees in hist beard ... were wildly aburd

That they must suffice with jelly-cone-splilt

So the bees set out on a rap for sources un-tapped Ny,he soda water foujtain.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: A Fairy Story anyone know more about it?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 13 May 05 - 01:25 AM

WHOOOOPES-

THE CLOSE! Somcethings serviously slipped between the posting and the actual musanuscrite.

Perhaps guests can only post 70 percent and the clones ameke plau with the rest.

(You they are there when the curser-ewly-cleamed funs wild)

Sincerely<
Gargpu;e

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: A Fairy Story -anyone know more about
From: GUEST,, and e
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 09:51 AM

The song "A Fairy Story" was written by Shay Healy in 1971-72 (see email below). The song is copyrighted and the Harry Fox agency handles the mechanical rights royalties for this song.


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Shay Healy
> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:04 AM
> Subject: Re: "A Fairy Story" by Shay Healy
>
> Greetings from the Emerald Isle.
>
> I am not sure, but I think I wrote Fairy Story sometime about 1971-2.
> I went singing in America for four years, the first year in the Harp
> and Bard Chain in Mass. Then I went to a place called Tara in
> Nashville for two years. And finally, I spent eight months on Cape
> Cod.
>
> A nephew of The Clancy Brothers, Robbie O'Connell, recorded the song,
> but I can't remember when. And as half of a duo called Rubbish, I
> recorded it as a B side to a song called "Silly Fellow," which was
> about the drug bust of Paul McCartney in Tokyo in 1980. The single
> stalled just outside the U.K Hot 100.
>
> By accident I found the song on the Brods site and in lieu of
> royalties, I asked for an x-Large. t-shirt. They still haven't sent
> it to me.
>
> I know I have a "live" version from Nashville, recorded in 1990 and
> I'll poke around until I find it.
>
> If you are doling it on to others, please make the corrections as per
> my recording.
>
> Stay sane
>
>