The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #90743   Message #1722320
Posted By: Mick Pearce (MCP)
19-Apr-06 - 06:55 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Ploughboy's Dream
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ploughboy's dream
The version from Daniel Wigg was collected by Gardiner only, I believe.

RVW did collect 2 verses from a Mr. Garman (published JFS II), who had previously sung it for John Broadwood:

I am a ploughboy stout and strong as ever drove a team.
Now three years since, asleep in bed, I had a dreadful dream.
Now since the dream has done me good I put it down in rhyme,
That other boys might read and sing whenever they have time.

I dreamt I drove my master's team with Dobbin, Bald and Star,
Before a stiff and handy plough, as all my master's are.
I found the ground was baked so hard, 'twas more like bricks than clay;
I could not cut my furrow through, nor would my beasts obey.

(Info from Roud Index and Roy Palmer's Bushes and Briars - Folk Songs collected by RVW).

Mick