The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #64019 Message #3623314
Posted By: Lighter
30-Apr-14 - 07:50 PM
Thread Name: Origins: The Hole in the Elephant's Bottom
Subject: RE: Origins: The Hole in the Elephant's Bottom
Alan Weeks, "A Bloody Picnic: Tommy's Humour 1914-18" (2010) reports that the song was sung at Christmas, 1916, by "a drunk captain" of 94 Field Ambulance, stationed at Couin.
I don't know Weeks's source of information, but there seems to be nothing improbable in the claim that the song was known in the First World War.