LYR ADD: Priest & Nuns (bawdy)

Subject: LYR ADD: Priest & Nuns (bawdy)
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 Jun 98 - 08:21 PM

This came from Jerry Bryant, I'll remember to ask him about it & the one line I'm not sure of.

A priest in Austria thought one day

1st Ch. Ho, Ho, Ho

He'd go to France without delay

2nd Ch. Haul a raul a rye, haul a raul a ray

He'd go to France without delay

3rd Ch. Haul a raul a ray, Ho, Ho

And when the father came to France
Ho, Ho, Ho
Seven sick nuns he found by chance
Haul a raul a rye, haul a raul a ray
Seven sick nuns he found by chance
Haul a raul a ray, Ho, Ho

He saw these nuns in the convent yard
All laying down on benches hard (2X)

My medicine stick will help cure you (not sure here)
I'm preist as well as doctor too

A sick nun then made quick reply
Said father treat me e'r I die

He took in hand his medicine stick
And he touched that nun so very quick

The others ran that they might see
And asked the priest what could it be

A medicine stick in my hand I hold
To cure all sick nuns in my fold

Another nun that lay close by
Cried father none so sick as I

He treated all the nuns alike
And said he'd call another night

Their treasure gone they looked in vain
For the priest that carried the medicine cane

Sorry I can't do tunes. Barry

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Priest & Nuns (bawdy)
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Aug 98 - 05:20 PM

There are some corrections to be made to this pumping shanty. The way I got it from a practice tape of Jerry's & how's it's out of Harlow's book is slightly different. The mistake is mine not Jerrys'.

2nd verse
So when this father came to France
'Twas seven sick nuns he found by chance
4th verse (was missing)
He gave these nuns his calling card
And asked "May I come in the yard"
5th verse
To one he asked what he could do
"I'm both priest & doctor too"
6th verse
A sick nun then in quick reply
Said "Treat me Father ere I die"
7th verse
With cane in hand a walking stick
He touched that nun so very quick
8th verse
The others quickly ran to see
And asked the priest "What could it be"
Last verse
Their money gone they looked in vain
For the priest that caried a walking cane

Barry

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Priest & Nuns (bawdy)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 31 Aug 98 - 06:20 PM

Good song Barry. There are many stories of lusty friars in The Decameron, The Heptameron, The Cent Nouvelles Nouvells and other novella collections of the renaissance, and I am suspect that we would have many similar ballads from England had not Henry VIII eliminated the monasteries and nunneries. This left no English settings for such songs. At least they could blame other countries for the lusty friars. The English bawdy ones then are often about Quakers and Puritans, and later, Presbyterians. There are a few earlier English songs on lusty friars in R. H. Robbins' 'Secular Lyrics of the 14th and 15th Centuries', and see "The Friar and the Nun", c 1500, on my website. "The Lusty Friar of Dublin" (ZN2554 in my broadside ballad index) prefered a married woman, but "The Lusty Fryer of Flanders" (ZN1898) got 30 nuns of Gaunt pregnant in a space of 3 weeks in a broadside ballad of 1688. [This is in de Sola Pinto and Rodway's 'The Common Muse' in the 'Clerical' section (Clerical = bawdy).]