Now here is a longshot:--- Verse nine:--"My father he wore a long staff and a farell" Now if we take bore for wore and like for and as a mishearing by someone writing from an oral source the clue is in the last word farell---to this day we still use the word farle, for a piece of scone or shortbread, this being a quarter of the whole as baked. Could the obscure line be referring to a quarterstaff the preferred weapon of the lower classes See Frank Docherty--"A brief history of the quarterstaff"
|