A New Year's Carol
For the Fishwives of Newcastle
tune- Chevy Chase.

God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all!
A woeful ditty we may sing
On ev'ry fishwife's stall.

Good Magistrates, it were a sin
That we should rail at you;
Altho' the plaice you've put us in,
Is grating to our view.

If crab-bed looks we should put on,
Or flounder in a pet,
Each fishwife's tub would, very soon,
Be in the kit-ty set.

Sure we are not such simple soles,
Though in your legal net,
But we will haul you o'er the coals,
And play hot cockles yet.

The Iron ring in which we're shut,
To make the grudgeons stare,
Will not, says ev'ry scolding slut,
With her-ring e'er compare.

Then ev'ry night that duly falls,
Fresh water may be sen
All floating round our seats and stalls,
As if we had-ducks been.

But thus shell'd in , as now we are,
Within our corp'rate bounds,
Altho' we may not curse and swear,
We still may cry, Cod-sounds!

Let gentle people carp their fill,
At us, our sprees and pranks;
For tho' we're now turn'd off the Hill,
Themselves may lose their Banks.

-M.Ross -In: The Newcastle Song Book or Tyne-Side Songster., W&T Fordyce
Newcastle Upon Tyne.