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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Reinhard Lyr Req: The Robber Bridegroom (9) Lyr Add: THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM (from K Roberts) 28 Mar 16


Derek and Dorothy Elliott sang "The Robber Bridegroom" in 1972 on their eponymous first album. Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman learned it from them an recorded it in 2015 on "Tomorrow Will Follow Today".

Alice Jones sang this as "One Moonlit Night" in 2014 on her and Pete Coe's album of songs from the Frank Kidson collection, "The Search for Five Finger Frank".

These are Kathryn Roberts lyrics:

"Go bring to me your dowry love
And some of your fathers gold besides,
That you may ride along with me
And be made next day my lovely bride."

She took the dowry, she took the gold,
The appointed night came very soon.
And away she's gone to the trysting tree
By the pale light of the rising moon.

She's come in first to the trysting tree,
Said, "In the leaves above I'll hide
To surprise my love, so that when he comes
He will wonder where is my lovely bride."

She waited a while as she sat hid,
She saw two men below her feet.
Her love she saw in the pale moonlight
As he dug a grave below the tree.

They waited a while but she never stirred
And at last they left their dreadful plan.
And when they both had safely gone
She slipped from the tree and home she ran.

A week went by, her love she met
At a neighbours house to pass the time.
The lads and girls they jest and played
And asked each other riddles and rhymes.

Her false love whispered, "Where were you love
The night I waited in vain for you?"
"I'll answer that," this girl replied,
"If you'll answer me this puzzle true:

"One moonlit night as I lay hid,
I looked for one but two came there.
The boughs did bend and the leaves did shake
For to see the hole the fox did make."

His colour changed and up he rose,
He saw his treachery made so plain.
Out of the doors into the night,
Never seen in those parts again.


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