The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127487   Message #2845560
Posted By: MGM·Lion
21-Feb-10 - 12:40 AM
Thread Name: lyr/Origins: Pretty polly (Knife in the Window)
Subject: RE: lyr/Origins: Pretty polly (Knife in the Window)
Dick & Mick above relate this Pretty Polly version to Hares On The Mountain, to which I would add aka Sally My Dear, with which HOTM is so often fused/collated. I have often come across stanza ~

O Sally My Dear, your clothes they do hinder [x2]
She laughed & replied "There's a knife by the window*"
To me wack fol de diddle i-do
& me wack fol de day {chorus variable)

* presumably pronounced in demotic fashion as 'winder'?

Always one of my favourite songs, tho I don't usually sing the 'knife by window/to bed they did tumble & how they did fumble &c' verses as I think this a more agreeable song kept slightly more chaste; but that just a personal taste/preference.