Matty Groves pocket knife query

Subject: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 12:31 PM

in the lyrics, which is considered to be correct?

For you have two long beaten swords and "I not" a pocket knife

or

For you have two beaten swords and "I but" a pocket knife

is it "I not" or "I but" and why?

Cheers
Les

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: michaelr
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 01:11 PM

Fairport version: "but"

Other versions: toss a coin...

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Arkie
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 01:15 PM

When did the "pocket knife" come into use?

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: GUEST,NIckp cookieless
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 01:20 PM

That'll almost certainly be any small knife used for eating, hunting etc. rather that the modern 'penknife' that we would use today. Cutlery beyond a spoon and sharp knife was relatively rare unless you were nobility even about 400 years ago. Is that the right sort of answer or am I just having a mad moment....

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 01:27 PM

Everyone had a knife.
Really though, 'but' or 'not' depends on what you are trying to say, not a critical issue though. Down to personal taste, 'not' would be my choice. It sits well with Musgrave's whiny personality.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 02:24 PM

I can't imagine him being without a weapon (no smut, please) so "but" seems more likely in context.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 02:32 PM

I think it's far more important to determine what is his opinion of the curtains got in the sale last week . . .

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 03:03 PM

From the version sung by John Jacob Niles (where I learned it):

I cannot rise, I will not rise;
I fear 'twould cost my life;
For you have got two bitter swords
And I hain't got a knife.

It's fun to track these things down if possible, but frequently if you take some ballad lyrics as some sort of gospel, you wind up chasing a lot of wild geese.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 10:26 PM

I've known this song for fifty years, and have heard a number of versions, and I never heard "and I BUT a pocketknife".   Nor even any such discussion.

The fact is that the lord is there, armed, and Matty Groves has been just roused from bed. Where's he got a knife? Stuffed up his bum?

And the lord says words to the effect, "Never will it be said that I slew a naked man."   He's not talking about Matty's state of clotheslessness. A "naked man" in this context is a man with no weapon.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: FiddlerOnTheHoof
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 10:42 PM

I've known this song for only fifteen years! I care not which is the 'right' word. I absolutely love this song. Fairport Convention were my entry into folk along with Steeleye Span, first heard them in 1989.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Aug 05 - 10:44 PM

Dave could it have been a reference to his private parts?

Have a look at these lyrics.

http://www.soundclick.com/pro/default.cfm?BandID=2395&content=lyrics&SongID=715663

If you listen to the song, its quite an interesting one.

Les

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: DonMeixner
Date: 21 Aug 05 - 12:58 AM

Just for informations sake. Folding knives have been around since the 1600's in one form another. I think longer than have pockets in pants been around.

Don

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Aug 05 - 11:15 AM

Pockets quite often referred to the cloth pouch worn suspended from a belt, under a tunic, or in the case of ladies, under a skirt or petticoat (Lucy Locket lost her pocket). They didn't actually become part of the trouser until the end of the 18th Century.

A pocket knife could possibly be construed as meaning a small, personal knife for food purposes, that could be carried in a pouch or 'pocket'.

LTS

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Aug 05 - 12:35 PM

Presumably "Villan" is thinking of the arrangement recorded by Fairport Convention, which has been pretty influential over the years. I don't recall where they got it from, but the information may be in one of the past discussions shown above. Because the recording has been so widespread, people tend to think of that form of the song as particularly authoritative, rather than as what it really is: just one of a great many variants.

There's no point in making guesses about a 17th century song (posssibly late 16th, though there is no record of that) based solely on a single commercial recording of the late 20th century, of course. For what it's worth, Sandy Denny certainly sang "not" rather than "but" on their recording, so in that sense, and in this single case, "not" is correct. Of course, a lot of people sing the song much as learned from Leige and Lief, probably in many cases not even knowing that's the source; and doubtless many do sing "but". It's a late development though, as a brief look at the history of the song shows. My comments are only based on a quick look through 88 examples (Child and Bronson); of course there are more than that.

Of the many examples noted or recorded from tradition, hardly any mention pocket knives; and the very few that do are relatively late American versions. Usually the reference is just to "a knife", and the understanding is almost always that he doesn't have even a knife with which to defend himself.

The oldest known examples (the first known broadside edition was printed for Henry Gosson of London, early 17th century) don't refer to the episode at all. Lord Barnet simply tells Mousgrove to get dressed, and offers him a choice of swords without Mousgrove having spoken a word on the subject. The knife episode is likely a later addition for increased dramatic effect; only one of the texts in Child (81.I, from Motherwell's MS, and presumably of the later 18th century; it was noted in 1825 from an elderly woman who had learnt it from her mother) includes it.

You can see some broadside editions of the later 17th century at  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

A lamentable ballad of Little Musgrove, and the lady Barnet

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Aug 05 - 03:32 PM

Exactly so, Malcolm. And this is why I cautioned against taking the words of any one ballad version as some sort of gospel.

One of many examples of how ballad lyrics get altered can be found in The Golden Vanity (or any of the various titles by which it is known). Leaving out whether boring a hole in the side of a ship while treading water is even possible (the subject of much argument in a previous thread), in the version I learned from a record by Richard Dyer-Bennet, the line is "And with his brace and auger, in her side he bored holes three." In some American mountain versions, the line is "He had a little tool all fit for the use, and he bored nine holes in her hull all at once." The singer may not have known what a brace and auger was, so he or she just did the best they could. That's one of the many ways the oral tradition alters folk songs.

It would be pretty fruitless to wander through your local hardware store or dig through old technical manuals trying to find some tool that could "bore nine holes all at once." "Pocket knife" is obviously some fairly recent addition to Matty Groves/

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: GUEST,Dr Who fan
Date: 21 Aug 05 - 09:45 PM

if it was me..

I'd have hid my knife under the pillow..
or beneath the bed beside the pisspot..

.. just in case I needed it..




then again.. Captain Jack in Dr Who was completely starkers
but when threatened by dangerous evil female robots
still managed to produce a small space ray gun
secreted somewhere mysterious from his body
to defend himself..

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Aug 05 - 10:08 PM

Oh, that was in his invisible holster (the man had a whole invisible space ship after all) but it was a good line with just the right element of doubt to amuse the adults without puzzling the children too much. Poor old Mousegrove, on the other hand, wouldn't have cut it in Flash Gordon's world, let alone the Good Doctor's.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 04:18 AM

Had he lived two-hundred years later, the Little Musgrave would have been known as a poodle-faker or peacock.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 08:04 AM

Updated by our club residents, Staff Folk...

Lord Harland drew his sword once more, it's edge just like a razor
But Matty beamed down James T Kirk, who zapped him with his phazer

How did that happen. Come to Swinton and find out:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Rasener
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 08:27 AM

LOL I like it.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Scotus
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 01:20 PM

Quite a few ballads have penknives (cf Banks o Aidrie/Fordie) - in the old days listeners would have immediately understood the clue that the bearer (of the penknife), even if purportedly a 'rank robber' (or some such) was actually someone highborn. They were the only ones who could read and write and would therefor have need of a penknife to sharpen their quills.

Cheers, Jack

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: MMario
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 01:25 PM

except of course for the base born clerics and clerks who did the writing and reading for those illiterate nobles who still abounded.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 06:51 PM

And that, so far as I can tell, no known variant of Child 81 mentions a pen knife at all; so that is pretty much irrelevant.

For a lengthy discussion of what penknives were like in the old days, who might be expected to possess one, and how best to kill somebody with it, see thread Wee pen knife.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: GUEST,wld
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 02:55 AM

its amazing what bothers some people....

Look heres the moral. Let's cut to the chase.....

Don't go messing about with the Lord of the manor's woman - that's all you need to know.

Got that?. floral and funeral arrangements - they might be lying about, and ladies like going on top, sometimes......

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Scotus
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 09:09 AM

Apologies, Malcolm - I was digressing again. But the thread to which you pointed me was great!

Jack

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Den
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 09:40 AM

You can get around this problem by singing Little Musgrave, which from what I gather, is essentially the same song;-)
I have two swords down by my side
and dear they cost my purse
You can have the best of them
and I will take the worst.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 12:37 PM

". . . and dear they cost my purse. . . ."

Indeed! A few years ago I saw a show on the History Channel about arms and armor through the ages. In the times "when knighthood was in flower," armor and weapons were not cheap. Using all the methods economists like to use to show equivalent prices, a good broadsword would cost about $15,000 to $20,000 in modern terms. The narrator commented that when you see a group of peasants wielding broadswords in a historical movie, that just didn't happen back then. The peasant's weapon might be something like a pitchfork or a scythe, and more often than not, the foot soldier's weapon was the pike—a bit of nastiness attached to the end of a long pole.

But, he said, most people did have some kind of knife. It good, serviceable knife was an all-purpose tool.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: GUEST,Songster Bob
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 04:50 PM

I have heard several versions where the line is, "and me not as much as a knife," which makes more sense in its way than "and me not a pocket knife." I suspect it could be that ol' debbil "folk process" that changes things in anachronistic ways.


Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: EBarnacle
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 07:30 PM

In "More Traditional Ballads of Virginia," the relevant line reads "You have two swords right by your side, And me not so much as a knife, knife, knife..." [page 180, Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard].

I have just spent about half an hour going through Child and other sources and most seem to agree with the above comment. In fact, Child does not seem consider Matty Grove at all. [Little Musgrave, Child 81]

Subject: RE: Matty Groves pocket knife query
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 08:10 PM

Of course he didn't. It wasn't until after he was dead that people started turning up American variants.