The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169020 Message #4091492
Posted By: Joe Offer
04-Feb-21 - 03:13 PM
Thread Name: ADD: bonny little bunch of rushes/Gathering Rushes
Subject: ADD: Gathering Rushes (from Reeves)
48 Gathering Rushes
GATHERING RUSHES
As I walked out one morning, thinking to take some sport Down by a crystal fountain where people did resort, 'Twas there I spied a fair maid and she was all alone With a bunch of rushes in her hand she’d been gathering all the morn.
CHORUS She’d been gathering all the morn, She’d been gathering all the morn, With a bunch of rushes in her hand she’d been gathering all the morn.
Good morning to you, fair maid, how came you here so soon? I have been gathering rushes and now I am returning home. He said, Fair maid, come along with me down to yon shady grove And for evermore I will prove true, I’ll swear to the powers above. Chorus: I’ll swear to the powers above . . .
Then he took her by the lily-white hand and gave her kisses sweet. She said, Young man be civil, don’t me ill entreat. She says, You’re going to delude me because that I am poor and low, So I pray, young man, don’t tease me or break my rushes, oh. Chorus: Or break my rushes, oh . . .
Then this fair maid consented to lay her rushes down, The morning being dewy she spread her morning gown. And now if trouble I should gain, the world will on me frown; I shall remember gathering rushes and spreading my morning gown. Chorus: And spreading my morning gown . . .
Notes from Reeves:
Gardiner collected from Mr John Norman at Southampton, June 25, 1906
Ms. gives title "As I Walked out one Morning"
Chorus lines written out in full after each stanza.
Rush-gathering and related occupations such as basket-making were traditionally female (cf. Green Besoms, No. 55, and Three Maids a-Rushing, No. I 32). ‘Rushing’ is in the lingua franca of folk song frequently a metaphor for female sexual adventure, as ploughing, sowing and reaping are for male. That this may also be so in the East is suggested by a very beautiful anonymous fourth-century Chinese love-song translated by Arthur Waley in his 170 Chinese Poems as "Plucking the Rushes."