SUSSEX WHIRDLING SONG
(Words by Barry Took & Marty Feldman)

Well, I've been dipping into my old ganderbag and I've come up with a a very tender and furtive madrigal, which has been passed down from father to son until the handle dropped off. It is an old Sussex courting song and tells the story of a swain who stands beneath his loved one's bower.

He's a very small swain, but then she's got a very low bower. It's the prevailing winds, you see. Anyway, he stands there in the full moonlight, a-plighting his troth. It's best to plight it where you can see it, otherwise you're liable to make a dog's breakfast of the whole rigmarole. So there he is, a-plighting his troth ...

A troth, by the way, is a small furry creature with fins. It's a cross between a trout and a sloth or slow-th, and it's a curious match. I often wonder what they saw in each other in the first place, though I suppose the sloth, hanging upside down, tends to have a different slant on things.

Anyway, nowadays people do say that they're extinct. But I believe they're hanging about somewhere, and that they'll come round when they're hungry.

Anyway, this lover is under this tree, singing to his light-'o-love, and he tells her of his desires as follows:

Will you still love me Mary-O
When my grussets be bended low
When my pubes grow dim and my orbs grow white
And my cordwangle makes an ugly sight
And my grussets be bended low-oh-oh
My grussets be bended low..

And she sings back to him

You ask me if I'll love you-O
When your grussets be bended low
Though your pubes grow dim and your orbs grow white
And your cordwangle makes an ugly sight
If I feel the way I do tonight
My answer will still be-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee (LONG PAUSE)
NO!!

Wassail! V