Hi,

I'm working on 8G. Madam, I Have Gold and Silver (the Folk Plays).

In Plough Plays in the East Midlands by M. W. Barley (Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Dec., 1953), pp. 82:

In addition to the usual song,

Behold the lady bright and gay
Good fortune and sweet charms,
So scornfully I've been thrown away
Right out of my true lover's arms;
He swears if I don't wed with him
As you will understand,
Hie'll go and list for a soldier
And go to some foreign land

the texts from Lusby, Branston and from the Bassingham group of villages also have the dialogue which has survived unchanged from the early nineteenth century, in which the wooer offers, unavailingly at first, gold and silver, house and land, rings and jewels.

The dialogue mentioned by Barley obviously refers to the gold and silver stanzas from Madam, however I find no record of these stanzas in a play from the early 1800s and the stanzas are not in the 1823 Bassingham play.

Anyone know when the stanza,

    Sergeant: Madam, I've got gold and silver
       Madam I've got house and land
       Madam I've got world and treasure,
       Everything at thy command.

first appeared in a folk play? What is the title of Lusby folk play?

Anyone?

Richie