The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #61309   Message #3970759
Posted By: Brian Peters
09-Jan-19 - 09:33 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Tom Bolynn (3)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Tom Bolynn (3)
"All traditionally collected * U.S. texts" come from the broadside

Lighter, thanks for this - I didn't know about that broadside (does it predate the earliest English BS?), BUT:
Cecil Sharp collected a eleven-stanza text from Eliza Pace in Hyden, KY, which is generally very similar, but includes two verses that are not in the broadside:

After the dinner they must have a dance
There's none of us knows how to lead out a prance
There's none of us knows how to begin
Let's aim at a jig, says Tom Boleyn

After the dinner they must have a bed
The sheets they were spread and the straw it was spread
The sheets they were short, the sides were thin
Stick close to my back, says Tom Boleyn

Another singer in the same town had the second of those. They look to me quite old, and it's interesting that the English broadsides have lines resembling those about the inadequacy of the sheets.

Has anyone seen the text of the version in William Wager's play, "The Longer Thou Livest, the More Fool Thou Art," dated about 1565, mentioned by 'Q' 16 years ago? Is it indeed the same song?

The play would be about the correct period for a squib about Anne Boleyn's father, as suggested above by Poppa Gator.