X:1
T:The Rambling Comber
S:Noted by H.E.D. Hammond
B:Folk Songs from Dorset, H.E.D. Hammond & Cecil Sharp, 1908.
L:1/8
Q:1/4=100
M:5/4
K:D
(DE)|F2 F2 (F2E2) E2|D2 d2 B4 d2|
w:You_ comb-ers all,_ both great and small, Come,
A2 A2 F4 D2|E2 D2 z4 D2|F2 F2 F4 E2|D2 d2 B4 d2|
w:lis-ten to my dit-ty, For it is ye and on-ly ye Re-
A2 A2 F4 D2|E2 D2 z4 A2|B2 c2 d4 d2|(3e2 d2 B2 A4 A2|
w:gard my fall with pi-ty. For I can write, read, dance,_ or fight, In-
B2 B2 B4 A2|(Bc) d2 z4 (DE)|F2 F2 F4E2|D2 d2 B4 (dB)|
w:deed it's all my hon-*our. My_ fail-ing is I drink strong beer, For_
A2 A2 F4 D2|E2 D2 z4|]
w:I'm a ram-bling comb-er.


Roud 1473. Noted in Dorset by H.E.D. Hammond and published with text and piano accompaniment by Cecil Sharp in Folk-Songs from Dorset (1908) and English County Folk Songs (1961). Details of the source singers were not given in these books, but source information for this song is probably available in the Hammond MSS (Vaughan Williams Library, London).

Transcriptions of the words as sung by John Kirkpatrick were posted in the earlier discussion The Rambling Comber. There are a little changed from Hammond's text, but mostly through the interjection of extra words like "now"; in only a couple of instances do the changes materially affect the sense. There is also a link to a broadside edition.

Roud currently lists only one other example of the song found in tradition, noted by Lucy Broadwood from Henry Burstow of Horsham in 1893; this was in 3/4.

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