Band o' Shearers - Shear what?

Subject: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 08:37 AM

I've always assumed that a shearer was someone shearing a sheep. Then I learned "Band O' Shearers" and wondered why they were shearing the poor sheep in autumn rather than in the spring (I expect that a sheep would prefer to keep its wool in the winter and lose it in the summer). I just listened to a recording of the song and noticed that the singer says (in the last verse) "and when the HARVEST, it be done..." So now I'm thinking maybe "Band O' Shearers" is about harvesting grain (which would make sense in the autumn) rather than shearing sheep? Can someone explain these details to a confused city girl?

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Wombat
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 08:49 AM

Is it possible that shearers = sheavers

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: just another guy with rubber boots
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 01:35 PM

My guess is that down under they shear the sheep upside down, in the "fall" but turning warm. Might be shear "folly", which makes poor wool...

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From:
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 05:47 PM

I've always wondered this myself. The song is Scottish, I believe, so fall would be no time to shear sheep.

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: John Nolan
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 06:33 PM

The 1965 Folk Songs and Ballads of Scotland, compiled and edited by Ewan MacColl (and which carries a front plate of shearers with my village of Coldstream in the distance) has this to say: "In Ord's introduction to Bothy Songs and Ballads there is an interesting note concerning shearers - 'The shearing was mostly done by women. The value of a day's work was calculated by the number of thraives cut. A thraive consists of 2 stooks of 12 sheaves each. To cut seven or eight sheaves was considered a good day's work for a shearer. After the introduction of the scythe (1810), the best men cut the corn, the women gathered into sheaves and made the bands, while younger men, as a rule, bound and stooked the sheaves. The bandster could claim a kiss from the gatherer for each band whose knot slipped in the binding.' As school lads, we were still stooking corn cut by a combine on the farms which didn't yet have balers, in the late 50s and early 60s, on the Scottish border.

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 07:20 PM

G'day All,

John Nolan is right: in British songs the term "Shearing" means shearing (harvesting) crops.If you are shearing a sheep, it is "Sheep-shearing".

BTW: Susan-Marie, you may be interested to know that Autumn is now often when sheep are shorn, since the onset of winter forces them to grow thick, warm wool as fast as possible. It is not the choice of the sheep, but it suits the grazier well!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 16 Dec 98 - 08:55 AM

Thanks very much everybody, especially to John for the excellent explanation and to Bob for the real-world context. I would imagine that shearing a sheep in autumn also gives spinners and weavers lots to do through the winter.

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: John Nolan
Date: 17 Dec 98 - 08:18 AM

As a footnote, the act of cutting the last sheaf of the harvest was called a "kirn", this same word doubling for a celebratory night of lively dancing (like a harvest home). Kirns, at least in the Border villages, were multi-generational affairs, for people of all ages helped get in the harvest. The Cheviot Ranters or Watty Frater And His Hawaiian Seranaders played country dance music, old ladies made trifle and pots of tea, young men snuck in half bottles of whisky. Another, less pleasant memory of harvesting was with the coming of the combine harvester, which cut in ever-decreasing circles towards the center of a field. In the last little square of corn would huddle all the rabbits, and these creatures, as their final cover was mowed down, would dash frantically across the stubble, pursued mercilessly by the youth of the village with sticks. That was known as a "killing".

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From:
Date: 17 Dec 98 - 06:25 PM

Didn't they have some ceremony when the last of the grain was cut -- "When the cornet [sp?} was brought home/And placed upon the mow" -- from "When This Old Hat Was New."

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: John Nolan
Date: 17 Dec 98 - 06:56 PM

Tim: re cornet. You might well be right, but the only use of "cornet" I know from the Scottish Borders is as the name given to the young man chosen annually by the people of Hawick to lead the riding of the marches in the town's Common Riding. By the way, I was wrong above. (Pardon my fading memory.) Smacking rabbits with sticks (or felling "moppies" with "gibbies" in our venacular)as they sped from the last square of standing corn was called a "finishing". Don't recall a rabbit-smacking song, though.

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Barbara
Date: 17 Dec 98 - 07:24 PM

Little rabbit Fru-fru, running through the....
oh, never mind.
Seems to be a necssary part of harvest wherever you live, that walking the last bit of standing grain, though I don't know about rabbit smacking. Failure to do it will result in a problem with the weight of the last few bails. When we were putting in the hay with neighbors, there would be that one that, when tossed to you, weighed a significant bit more. And Larry would say, "Oh, that must be the one with the cat in it."
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From:
Date: 20 Dec 98 - 02:21 PM

Well, I don't have the lyrics to the song written out. I looked in OED and saw no appropriate meaning for "cornet" in this sense.

Maybe I am hearing it wrong, and it is "When the corn it was brought home/And placed upon the mow." In those days "corn" meant "grain" or "seed", not the maize that North Americans now call "corn." The song does seem to refer to some some post-harvest festivity though.

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 03:49 AM

I stooked corn sheaves as a lad. Just listen to the lyrics and it should be clear that it's a harvest song, nor a sheep shearing song.

'An gin the weather it be hot, I'll cast off my vest and coat/ And I'll count my sheaves among yon lot when we join in the toil of shearin'

'An gin the thistle it be strang, that it would hurt your milk-white hand, it's with ma hook I'll cut it down, and forget all the toils o' shearin'

Anyway, the stooks were usually topped with a corn dolly or corn mop, never heard it called a cornet. Probably should be 'when the corn was brought home/ and placed upon the mow.

I'll go back to sleep now.

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 05:36 AM

Corn is an old English word - even gunpowder was 'corned' - and 'corned beef' is called so because of the 'corns' of salt/saltpetre.

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Noreen
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 07:46 AM

Same derivation in: Origins: O the Shearing's Not For You

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Scotus
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 08:34 AM

There are some great old Scots words in 'The Band o Shearers'

I'll cast my grovat = cravat

Wi my heuch (pronoumced hyuch) I'll cut it doon = hook

And a nice Scots dependent rhyme - 'I'll share my lot' (share and shear)

The song is one of many extolling the romantic idyll of rural life as thousands of country dwellers moved to the towns during the industrial revolution.

Jack Beck

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: GUEST,andy
Date: 19 Apr 05 - 08:44 AM

'corn it was brought home' transposed into 'cornet was brought home'
Classic Mondegreen surely?
Best wishes

Andy

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: Anglo
Date: 19 Apr 05 - 11:16 AM

Looking at the illuminative post from John Nolan up at the top (from many years ago!) I note the reference to the one who ties the sheaves as the "bandster." I'd always wondered about the word (from the song "Johnny Sangster") but had never tried to look into it.

Maybe he was the one who got the cornet :-)

Subject: RE: Band O' Shearers - Shear what?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 05 - 08:47 PM

Jack Beck is spot on. The romantic view of rural life, with the attendant antiquarians taking notes and writing down the bothy ballads etc, occurred as most Scots were going down the mill at the age of 12. The simple life of the crofter (more likely a migrant labourer as in [i]The Lothian Hairst[/i]) was idealised, in the most extreme form by Sir Harry Lauder. All the lads working Clydeside and in the mills in the towns could get a bit misty eyed thinking about the life their parents never had while listening to this bilge. Actually, they didn't do that at all. Lauder and his ilk were never popular among the urban labouring class. The tunes played better to a middle class audience removed from the doings of the rural peasantry and and urban labourers.

It is still true today. My family goes down the local nightly, where they drink Coors, smoke Marlboros, and watch the footy, while American country and western is playing in the background. They would start breaking things if 'Johnny Sangster' or 'The Band o' Shearers' was played.