I just checked the database and found that the Cork Leg lyrics there are different than the ones in Herbert Hughes. This from Vol.2, published in 1915. I heard this song on National Public Radio by an Irish soprano named Francis Lucy, making her American debut in New York on the radio. She sang a recital of classical pieces, and ended it with Irish songs. Using this piano accompaniment, she sang this version word for word. There is a slow, rolling portion of the accompaniment as it nears the end of the song. Hughes' notes on this song label it as "old song, Tyrone version".
THE CORK LEG
Tyrone county version
I'll tell you a story that is no sham,
In Holland lived a merchant man.
And ev'ry morning he says, "I am the
The richest merchant in Amsterdam."
chorus
Ri-tiddy till-o-ri-lo-ri-laddi-ti
Tiddy-till-o-ri-lo-ri-lee.
One day he sat as full as an egg,
When a poor relation came in to beg,
And kicking him out with a brogue and a keg,
And kicking him out he broke his leg.
chorus
He told his friends he had got hurt
"By a friend, I have lost a foot,
And up on crutches I never will walk,
For I'll have a beautiful leg of cork."
chorus
A doctor came on his vocation
And over it made a long oration,
And over it made a long oration,
And finished it off with an amputation.
chorus
When the leg was on and finished right,
When the leg was on they screwed it tight.
But still he went with a bit of a hop,
When he found the leg it wouldn't stop.
chorus
O'er hedges and ditches and scaur and plain
To rest his wearied limbs he'd fain.
He threw himself down but all in vain,
The leg got up and away again.
chorus
He called to them that were in sight,
"Stop me or I'm wounded quite"
Although their aid he did invite,
In less than a minute he was out of sight.
chorus
And he kept running from place to place,
The people thought he was running a race,
He clung to posts for to stop the pace,
But the leg it still kept up the chase.
chorus
Over hedges and ditches and plain and scaur,
And Europe he has travelled o'er
Although he's dead and is no more,
The leg goes on as it did before.
chorus
So often you see in broad daylight,
A skeleton on a cork leg tight,
Although the artist did not him invite,
He never was paid and it served him right.
chorus
----------------- (Although this version refers to an artist at the end, it has left out the verses which you find in the database, regarding the artist who specialized in making cork legs. )
alice in montana