The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #1060   Message #3295
Posted By: LaMarca
20-Mar-97 - 11:51 AM
Thread Name: DT Correction: Pretty Peg (from The Bothy Band)
Subject: Lyr Add: PRETTY PEG or THE KEECH IN THE CREEL ^^^
The song isn't a variant of Fenario; it's a version of the Child ballad "The Keech in the Creel" These are the words from my memory; there's a few gaps here and there. I typed this out at least a month ago in answer to this request before...

When Pretty Peg walked down the street some fresh fish for to buy,
The wee town clerk followed after her and he kissed her by and by.

REFRAIN: With my tiddy-right-fol-da-liddle-dido, with my tiddy-right-fol-da-liddle-day.

"Oh, how can I get to your chamber, love? How can I get to your bed,
When your daddy goes to bed at night with a keen eye on his head?"

"Oh, go and get a ladder, love, with thirty steps and three,
And put it to the chimney top and come down in a creel to me." (Creel = a large basket)

He's gone and got a ladder of thirty steps and three,
And a creel on the top of that and come down in the lum to she. (Lum = chimney)

No peace nor sleep could the old wife get with dreams running through her head.
"I'll lay on me life, said the gay old wife, "There's a boy in our daughter's bed!"

He's gone creeping up the stairs as soft as he could steal.
Silence reigned throughout the house and he never twigged the creel. (Twigged = caught on to; noticed)

"My curse upon thee, father! What brought thee up so soon,
To put me through my evening prayers and I just lyin' doon?"

He's gone back to his gay old wife. He's gone back to she.
"She's got the prayer book in her hand and she's praying for you and me."

No peace nor ease could the old wife get till she's gone up to see.
(Memory lapse here...) and into the creel went she.

"Oh, high I rocked her. Didn't I rock her? Didn't I rock her well?
For if any old dame begrudge me her daughter, I'll rock her into hell!"

There's a Scottish version of this called "The Blue Blanket" where the young man has an accomplice to lower him down the chimney. When Dad comes up to check on his daughter, she wraps her boyfriend up in a blue blanket to hide him. When Momma comes up to spy, she falls into the basket, and the accomplice starts hauling her up the chimney. She screams that the Devil had got her, the accomplice keeps her busy, and daughter and sweetheart have a good time...
^^^