The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169550   Message #4097872
Posted By: Joe Offer
16-Mar-21 - 01:33 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Carter, or Faerie Pie (Bob Franke)
Subject: ADD: The Carter, or Faerie Pie (Bob Franke)
Here's my transcription. I found the recording here (click). Anybody want to listen and offer corrections?

THE CARTER, or, FAERIE PIE
(Bob Franke)

Once upon my daily rounds,
In another part of town,
There I saw the queerest shop,
It nearly caused my heart to stop,
I, a strong young carter.

Pies they sold, the like as I
Hadn't seen but longed to try,
So my hunger drove me down
That flight of steps below the town,
Heart to beat the harder.

Dim the light and strong the smell
Of Cornish pies I must now tell,
With my pennies (?) sat I down
To eat beneath the streets of town,
For (?) the hungry carter.

There the sweetest meat I had,
Eating like a collier lad,
Sang a lady to me then,
"Now can you roam the streets again
As a brave young carter."

"Can I then and can I not
Rise from off this very spot?"
So I said, then so I rose
And so a fool to Bedlam goes,
Or a foolish carter.

Up the steps and out I ran,
There my time of trial began,
As in a dream I stumbled on,
For horse and cart and shop were gone,
Like a faerie's barter.

Stumbled I to break my fall,
Straight (?) to my employer's hall,
There to tell my tale of ill,
To see that place (?) so very still,
Seemed my fate the harder.

"Tom," said I, to see that lad,
A lad no more, and was I mad?
"Have you come to mock my tears," said Tom,
"And you gone seven years,
Thief, though once a carter?"

"Father dead, and you return?"
So he said, and so I learned,
So I ran in disbelief,
This old (?) young man had called me thief,
Once his father's carter.

So I took the western road
Leaving cart and name(?) and load,
Leaving seven years behind
To take my place down in the mines,
Collier once a carter.

Transcribed by the Bob Franke album, In this Night