The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #42319   Message #2359432
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
06-Jun-08 - 11:55 AM
Thread Name: Meaning of Twanky Dillo
Subject: RE: Meaning of Twanky Dillo
That's another book that Google witholds from British users, but the text (and presumably also the tune) appears to have been copied from Lucy Broadwood and J A Fuller Maitland, English County Songs, London: Leadenhall Press, 1893, 138-9; it came from Samuel Willett of Cuckfield. Presumably Spicker acknowledged his source somewhere in the book?

Miss Broadwood commented on the connection between the Blacksmith song and 'a song about a goose and a shepherd's dog, arranged by J Hook. It had a refrain of "Twankidillo, and he played on his merry bagpipes beneath the green willow." Compare "The Goose and the Gander"...' (etc).

Hook was horribly prolific, so without a title it may prove difficult to identify the song meant (or it may not; we shall see): at any rate, forms of the chorus seem to have been attached to three distinct songs (four if you count 'Roger Twangdillo') so some more thought about how they interrelate is needed.