The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #22878 Message #1721643
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
19-Apr-06 - 02:20 AM
Thread Name: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
Ah, you haven't got yourself a copy of Classic English Folk Songs yet, then, Abby. The verse in question didn't come from the lady at Stoke Fleming at all, but was interpolated from a set published in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I (4) 1904, 214-5, which Lucy Broadwood got from a Mr Ede of Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1896. Bert Lloyd like his love-songs racy, of course. He altered it a little, too; Mr Ede sang
And 'twas on one summer's morning by the dawning of the day,
And they went into some cornfields to have some sport and play,
And what they did there she never will declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.
That verse isn't common. Baring-Gould noted it (but didn't publish it) and David Buchan printed one from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe's MSS, but those are the only examples I can think of.