Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.

Subject: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: jimlad9
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 10:27 AM

Was Cushie Butterfield, Real or Legend?.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 10:36 AM

Cushie Butterfield: She's a little cow - Colin McNaughton


... Cushie Butterfield is a cow who is feeling rather sickly, far too sick for school! Everyone can see how sick she is as she lies on her bed. It's Monday morning and she has huge red spots all over her face…..Tuesday morning and her face is covered in Green checks….and so on and on with ...
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 10:46 AM

Cushie Butterfield as in the Newcastle song may have been a real person. Certainly all the individuals mentioned in Blaydon Races were.As to who she was beyond being a Clay seller I don't know but will try to find out.(I do remember seeing what purported to be a period portrait of her when I was in primary school but that may have been a hoax)

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 10:56 AM

Her sister, Slushie Butterfield used to sell yellow snow but there was not much call for it!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: jimlad9
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 11:38 AM

Skipy

What are you on?. Or should that be what planet are you on?.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 11:46 AM

I have not yet been able to ascertain her existence, but Geordie Ridley did often write about people he knew personally so I think she may have been real.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: fat B****rd
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 03:00 PM

I believe I heard "Pretty Little Polly Perkins Of Paddington Green" to the same tune.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 03:03 PM

That is correct, FB who stole who's tune was a contentious issue at the time.
To some of us,it still is.;)

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 05:50 PM

jimlad9, my spaceship failed your u/k emmision rules but when modified it will return to collect me & I can then go home to the planet megabreast 2.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Helen
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 05:53 PM

I think this thread belongs above the line. It's music related and a serious question. Except for skipy's megabreasted antics, of course.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 06:00 PM

Never mind my antics, they are only in fun & harmless.
I did a lot of research this afternoon to try to answer the question but only turned up the gen. that others did.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 06:17 PM

She's a big lass and a bonny lass and she likes her fun.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:05 PM

.....& thats only the polite version...

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: pdq
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:41 PM

Don't forget the New York branch of the family that gave us Tushie Butterfield.

She was the inspiration for the movie Butterfield Ate.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:41 PM

She's a big lass and a bonny lass and she likes her beer!

Anyway, it's a fine drinking song.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: John Routledge
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 08:14 PM

Legend has it that the Geordie Ridley wrote a now generally unsung verse indicating that Cushie was having an "illegal liason" with a lad from Shipcote (sp) Threat of physical retribution caused the verse to be removed!! I therefore assume that Cushie Butterfield was fairly directly based on a real person :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 11:31 PM

I was born in Chicago, and I know!

She was Paul's mother.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 03:04 AM

The "chep from Shipcote" is alluded to in the version I know.
Though it has just occurred to me that "Cushie" is also an English slang term meaning "easy",when applied to a woman I should imagine that meant pretty much what it does now.
Might Ridley have been intentionally exploiting this ambiguity?

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:43 AM

She's gorgeous.

eric, the broken hearted keel lad

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Scrump
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:04 AM

She was just a big bonny lass, wasn't she?

And she liked "hor beor" as I believe it should be pronounced (why is there never a Geordie around when you need one?)

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:10 AM

Mota bouts an raza blayads
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:12 AM

She wa jus a Getshed lass who were wuth wratin about

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:12 AM

I was born in Corbridge,I live in North Shields & I am doing the best that I can Scrump!

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Scrump
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:56 AM

Howay Alec! :-)

Anyway, what I'd like to know is, why isn't this above the line?

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 07:55 AM

I agree with Helen -- this should be above the line.

Back in the '70s some time (my "popular" folk era before I discovered true traditional) I learned "Cushie McCoy" obviously derived from "Cushie Butterfield" from The Irish Rovers' TV show (perhaps written by them).

"She's a big lass and a bonny lass
And she'll make your head spin.
Old Cushie's in fine shape
For the shape that she's in."

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:08 AM

I never liked the verse where Cushie gets all sentimental when her lover offers to marry her:

"Then she started a blubbing and she roared like a bull..."

Sentimental claptrap as an old Bristol friend used to say!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Helen
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:29 AM

Alec,

I suspect that the term "cushie" is a relatively recent term (i.e. 20th Century perhaps), and I also suspect that it comes from the word "cushion" so it has more of the meaning of soft & comfortable, so a "cushie life" or a "cushie job" is soft, comfortable, and easy. I'd be very surprised if the other use of "easy", with reference to a woman, is related to that meaning.

I'll look up some definition & dictionary sites, and also some dictionaries to see if I'm wrong (or right.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:36 AM

Thanks Helen you're probably right as this was just conjecture on my part.Also I have noticed that when a man denounces a woman as "easy"
he seems to mean "Well I think she may have slept with the other guy but she point blankly refused to do so with me." This seems to be implicitly the position of the narrator of the song in the last verse.
(Again conjecture): )

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Helen
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:40 AM

Oh, and skipy, I should have put a funny face with my comment. It was in fun, so I'm sorry if it came across as narky.

Well, one site says the word "cushy" was first used in writing in World War I, some sites say it is from the Hindi word Khush, meaning pleasant, or from a Persian word. Some sites say it comes from a shotening of the word "cushion", so now I'm even more confused.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Scrump
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:54 AM

Well she being a big and bonny lass, would no doubt possess the attributes of a cushion, regarding the soft and comfortable aspects. So maybe that was how she got "hor nyem".

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:57 AM

No problem Helen, I didn't take it that way all.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: GUEST,ib48
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:58 AM

a big fat geordie,and believe me she has plenty of followers around the bigmarket

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Joybell
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 03:24 PM

I seem to recall that "Cushie" is a name for a cow. Can't remember my source. I'll try to find it.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 03:41 PM

Her eyes is like two holes
    in a blanket burnt through.
    Her brows in a morning
    would spyen* a young cow.
    And when I hear her shouting
    "Will you buy any clay ?"
    Like a candyman's trumpet,
    it steals my heart away.

               
*   "spyen" - dry up a cow's milk.

There is a "cow link" in the verse above.
Also the book Cushie Butterfield as I put in the second post.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 04:31 PM

Norfolk Dialect cushie = sweets.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 04:39 PM

GOT IT!
MID-TEES 1849 - DINSDALE'S GLOSSARY
Cushie + childs term for cow!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: skipy
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:04 PM

Meant = not +
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: gnomad
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 07:32 PM

Cushy is certainly to be found in WW1 literature, and is ascribed a hindustani origin by pte 19022 Frederic Manning in The Middle Parts of Fortune [AKA Her Privates We] first published 1929.

Course that doesn't mean he was right, but he was an educated, somewhat scholarly, man. He was also familiar with the language of the ranks, having served as a private in the Somme area in autumn 1916.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 06:25 AM

You may be confusing cushy with Cushtie, the latter being a shortened Romany word Cushtiepen, which means 'sweet'. I knew a Romany child at school and her mother often called her 'Cushtiepen'.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 06:34 AM

For what it's worth "Yella Clay" was used in the cleaning of doorsteps.I have discovered that there is at least one site out there that claims this song was written by Sting(!)

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Scrump
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 07:18 AM

Bound to be, he's a Geordie isn't he? Although he doesn't talk like one.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 03:37 PM

Any relation to John?    He had more than 2,800 miles.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Joybell
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 04:09 PM

Ah! That's it Skipy.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 05:21 PM

Liz - cushie =easy, sweet etc., kushtie = good, sweet etc., same Indoeuropean origins, one here via Romani as you rightly say, the other via (I suspect) the army, as in describing a none life-threatening wound that got you out of the firing line, or an easy job as a cushie one or cushie number.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: GUEST,Micca at work
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 03:42 AM

I wonder if the "cows" reference might not have come fromhere?

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Alec
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 03:49 AM

I suppose it's possible but I find it interesting that when the narrator means "Coo" he says "Coo"

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 04:40 AM

Could be Micca... I know my granfer called his cows to milking by shouting 'cush, cush' to them. They'd turn towards him at the sound of his voice and amble gently down to the milking parlour and into their stalls.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: GUEST,micca at work
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:06 AM

BTW Liz, as a former campanologist(with reference to the Jean Ingelow poem linked above) do you know what the "Brides of Enderby" is/was? a Tune? a peal?

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: GUEST,Prospect Avenue North
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 05:34 PM

She was a real person who eloped from the Quayside with her lover.
Shes a big lass, Shes a bonny las,
And she likes her beer,
And they caaal her Cushy Butterfield,
And i wish she was here!

Actually Colin McNaughton is a Wallsend on Tyne lad and he wrote about the cow with the same name!

Subject: RE: BS: Who Was Cushie Butterfield?.
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 04:29 AM

According to Stephen Sedley, [ The Seeds Of Love, Essex Music 1967 ] it was written by George Ridley as a parody of Pretty Polly Perkins, but it is a distinct improvement.

eric