The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18010   Message #3046609
Posted By: Jim Dixon
04-Dec-10 - 09:28 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Old Fox Wassail II
Subject: Lyr Add: HALSE WASSAIL SONG
From an article "Wassailing the Apple Trees" by F. J. Snell, in The Antiquary, Vol. 29 (London: Elliot Stock, March, 1894), page 123:

[The fox doesn't come in until verse 3.]

HALSE WASSAIL SONG.

Wassail, wassail, all round the town,
The zidur-cup is white, and the zidur is brown.
Our zidur is made from good apple trees,
And now, my fine fellows, we'll drink, if you please.
We'll drink your health with all our heart,
We'll drink to 'e all before we part.

[CHORUS?] Here's one, and here's two,
And here's three before we goo.
We're three jolly boys all in a row,
All in a row, boys, all in a row,
And we're three jolly boys all in a row.

This is our wassail, our jolly wassail,
And joy go with our jolly wassail.
Hatfuls, capfuls, dree basket, basketfuls,
And a little heap in under the stairs.

Down in a green copse there sits an old fox,
And there he sits a-mopping his chops.
Shall we go catch him, boys—say, shall we go?
A thousand to one whor we catch him or no.

There was an old man, and he had an old cow,
And for to keep her he couldn't tell how,
So he bild up a barn to kip his cow warm;
And a liddle more liquor 'll do us no harm.

And now we'll go whooam, and tell our wife Joan
To put in the pot the girt marrow-bone,
That we may have porridge when we do cum whooam.

There was an old man, and he lived in the West,
The juice of the barrel war what he loved best.
He loved his ould wife so dear as his life,
But when thay got drunk, why thay soon cum to strife.


[I don't know what to make of the variable number of lines per verse, but that could be rectified by splitting into 2-line verses, and stealing a line from Conrad's version.]