The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #32073 Message #1331374
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
18-Nov-04 - 02:43 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: An Acre of Land
Subject: Lyr Add: THE CAMBRIC SHIRT (from Max Hunter)
Thanks, Tradsinger. The song collected by Max Hunter, mentioned by Sandy Paton,with both audio and midi, is called "Rosemary and Thyme." Max Hunter
Lyr. Add: THE CAMBRIC SHIRT
Can you make me a cambric shirt Fluma luma laky slomy Without seam or fine needle work? Ffom a teaslum tasalum templum Fluma luma laky sloomy
Can you wash it in a well * Where water never ran nor water never fell?
Can you dry it on a thorn That never was seen since Adam was born?
Can you buy me an acre of land Between the salt water and the sea land?
Can you plow it with a hog's horn And seed it all down with one pepper corn?
When the fool has done his work He may come to me and have his shirt.
* Nonsense lines of verse one omitted. Secured by Miss Hamilton in 1910 from Fred Wilkinson who got it from a MS collection made by his grandmother, Eliza Robbins, of Brownington, VT. H. M. Belden, "Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society," 1940 (1973), The Elfin Knight C, p. 3.