No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)

Subject: No jesting with edged tools
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 11:50 AM

Does anyone know what is meant by the last line in the 5th verse of Watkin's Ale, viz

There is no jesting with edged tools ?

Words at https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=7611

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 12:08 PM

Don't play with dangerous things is the way I read it.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 12:27 PM

The "tool" is, of course, the male generative organ (ahem). As one should not risk handling an edged tool ("sharp-edged tool," in the version I know) in a casual manner, one should not use a generative organ unless one is willing to face the consequences.

As with everything in "Watkin's Ale," the statement has a surface meaning which is clean and a real meaning which is really dirty: If you don't want to get pregnant... don't do that which causes you to get pregnant.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:17 PM

"The "tool" is, of course, the male generative organ (ahem)."

Only to a dirty mind! :-)

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:40 PM

Dave the Gnome wrote, Only to a dirty mind! :-)

Um -- if you don't have a dirty mind, what are you doing singing "Watkin's Ale"? :-)

Seriously -- everyone knew it was dirty. Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, e.g., printed the tune but said that the text was not suitable for publication, and the early printings, uncharacteristically, omit the printer's name.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:41 PM

Thanks chaps. I did think that it might be a male member, but was wondering where the edge is... lol

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:45 PM

It's got nothing to do with a male member IMHO. Jesting with edged tools is just a bad idea. There is nowhere in literature or folklore that refers to a male member as edged.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST,Cnd
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 02:02 PM

Shakespeare had a number jokes about "sword fights" and from what I've read, the joke in the day was fairly implicitly understood.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 02:15 PM

The key thing about "Watkin's Ale" is to understand that everything has a double meaning. Everything. If you don't see it, you aren't looking hard enough.

Even the title. Why Watkin's ale? "Wat" is of course a perfectly good Middle English name (think Wat Tyler), and -kin is a perfectly good diminutive (for a ballad example, think "Harpkin"), so Watkin on the surface means "little Wat" or "young Wat" or "Wat the lesser."

But "Wat/Wot" also means to know, or to have knowledge or wit. Thus Watkin is, or could be, one of little wit, and Watkin's Ale is, or could be, ale that is dangerous to the unaware.

And an edged tool is a blade or a sword, and a blade or a sword is another name hidden name for the male generative organ, and blade is also one who, er, wields a sword.

And I invite you to think about the multiple meanings of handling, i.e. holding in the hands, a sharp-edged tool.

It really doesn't take a dirty mind to see this -- such things usually pass right over me, and I intensely dislike most rugby songs. All it takes is a mind that is aware of the ambivalency of the meanings of words.

Incidentally, on topics like this, it is worth consulting Eric Partridge's A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. (My copy was given to me by the late Ed Cray, probably because he didn't think my mind was dirty enough!) The very first "unconventional" meaning of "tool" is, in fact, the male generative organ. And this meaning is attested by the sixteenth century. And to grind one's tool, i.e. to sharpen it, is to engage in coitus, although that is not attested as early.

Partridge also documents that "wat" was a nickname for hares, which were famously fecund.

The song has actually acquired more dirtiness in recent years, when "sharp and blunt" has become rhyming cant for... well, you can probably think of a non-printable word that rhymes with "blunt." But that usage is too recent for "Watkin's Ale."

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 02:44 PM

Yes, and Ding Dong Merrily on High is about mutual masturbation while smoking pot

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 02:57 PM

Maybe Watkins first name was Tommy?

Have you noticed that "edged tool" is an anagram of "do ogle ted" and we all know what THAT means

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 02:54 PM

Apparently there is some doubt here that "Wat" is a genuine English name.

It is true that it is not common among the upper classes. It was a lower class name. But it is widely attested. Examples:

The most famous "Wat" in history was surely Wat Tyler (killed 1381): "The most famous leader of the Peasant's Revolt in 1381, Tyler was a man of obscure origins. He may have worked as a tiler in Essex; he was said to have served with Richard Lyons, a wealthy London merchant in France.... He first emerged as a major leader in Kent at the end of the in June 1381, seizing Canterbury on June 10 and heading the march to London on the next day. On June 15 he was the spokesman at Smithfield.... The young king Richard II ordered the mayor [of London], John Walworth, to arrest Tyler, and in a struggle he was killed." (John Cannon, editor, The Oxford Companion to British History, 197; revised edition, Oxford University Press, 2002; entry on Wat TYLER.)

There is a poem in Richard Hill's commonplace book (Balliol MS. 354), generally believed to be a traditional religious song, usually known as "Jolly Wat" or "The Jolly Shepherd Wat." It opens:
The sheperd vpon a hill he satt,
He had on hym his tabard & his hat,
His tarbox, hys pype & and hys flagat;
Hys name was called joly, joly Wat;
For he was a gud herdis boy,
            Vt hoy!
For in his pype he made so mych joy.
Can I not syng but hoy
Whan the joly sheperd made so mych joy.
From Roman Dyboski, Songs, Carols, and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol Ms. 354, Richard Hill's Commonplace Book, Kegan Paul, 1907, item 30, pp. 16-18, leaf 224 in the actual manuscript. The original contains some abbreviations which Dyboski expanded; if anyone actually cares, I can list what they are. Hill collected his material in the reign of the Tudors, starting around 1500 and ending around 1536.

In the General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (lines I.642-643 as numbered in the Variorum Chaucer) we read
And eek ye knowe wel how that a jay
Kan clepen 'Watte' as wel as kan the pope.
In other words,
And also you know well how that a jay
Can call 'Wat' as well as can the pope.
(There are a whole bunch of manuscript variations in those lines, especially in 642, but Hengwrt and Ellesmere agree on the text, and the only variation in Gg is that it omits "how" in 642. And if that statement makes no sense -- ignore it; it's merely more scholarly apparatus.) As for what this means, it's in the description of the Summoner. The interpretation given by Morris in 1874 is that "the jay 'can call Walter (Wat) by his name; just as parrots are taught to say 'Poll.'" Mann in 1973 amplified that this is a traditional satiric form in which a "talking bird... is trained to repeat material beyond his comprehension." In other words, the Summoner parrots the words of his summonses.

So there we have it, from (in effect) three levels of English society: the poor (Wat Tyler), the urban commercial class (Richard Hill was a grocer who collected material from other businessmen), and the aristocracy (Chaucer, born a vintner's son, because a minor member of the gentry who wrote for the nobility). All attest the name "Wat."

I could offer additional information, but I suspect that you all stopped reading long ago anyway. :-) I can't even really say that I blame you. :-)

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 07:41 AM

The full name of the song is A Ditty Delightful Of Mother Watkins Ale, a warning well weighed though counted a tale, so it doesn't seem to be the young man that is Watkins.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 08:17 AM

Guest wrote: "The full name of the song is A Ditty Delightful Of Mother Watkins Ale, a warning well weighed though counted a tale, so it doesn't seem to be the young man that is Watkins."

I made no claim about Watkins. :-) I said WATKIN (no s). :-)

But there are two basic texts of Watkin's Ale. One is the one that begins "There was a maid this other day." The other begins "As Watkin walked by the way." That text seems largely forgotten (I have never seen a full version; it's reportedly from MS. Rawlinson Poet. 185), but clearly it had a character "Watkin" in it.

I don't think we know which text is older, but logic argues for "As Watkin walked by the way." Both texts were considered too dirty to print, so neither can be a bowdlerization of the other. But "There was a maid this other day" is so incredibly clever that I don't think anyone would replace it, except to bowdlerize it. Since it isn't bowdlerized, it is probably a replacement for the text "As Watkin walked...." That's not proof -- but it's typically how you expect things to happen.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 02:04 PM

I'll show myself out...

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 03:19 PM

Please understand that I'm not trying to fight with or insult anyone. I'm just an information junkie. :-) If I don't have either information or logic to supply, I won't post.

Of course, that probably means most people will want to avoid my posts like the plague. :-)

Subject: No jesting with edged tools
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 11:50 AM

Does anyone know what is meant by the last line in the 5th verse of Watkin's Ale, viz

There is no jesting with edged tools ?

Words at https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=7611

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:41 PM

Thanks chaps. I did think that it might be a male member, but was wondering where the edge is... lol

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST,Cnd
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 02:02 PM

Shakespeare had a number jokes about "sword fights" and from what I've read, the joke in the day was fairly implicitly understood.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 07:41 AM

The full name of the song is A Ditty Delightful Of Mother Watkins Ale, a warning well weighed though counted a tale, so it doesn't seem to be the young man that is Watkins.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 02:04 PM

I'll show myself out...

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 12:08 PM

Don't play with dangerous things is the way I read it.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:17 PM

"The "tool" is, of course, the male generative organ (ahem)."

Only to a dirty mind! :-)

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:45 PM

It's got nothing to do with a male member IMHO. Jesting with edged tools is just a bad idea. There is nowhere in literature or folklore that refers to a male member as edged.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 02:44 PM

Yes, and Ding Dong Merrily on High is about mutual masturbation while smoking pot

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 02:57 PM

Maybe Watkins first name was Tommy?

Have you noticed that "edged tool" is an anagram of "do ogle ted" and we all know what THAT means

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 12:27 PM

The "tool" is, of course, the male generative organ (ahem). As one should not risk handling an edged tool ("sharp-edged tool," in the version I know) in a casual manner, one should not use a generative organ unless one is willing to face the consequences.

As with everything in "Watkin's Ale," the statement has a surface meaning which is clean and a real meaning which is really dirty: If you don't want to get pregnant... don't do that which causes you to get pregnant.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 01:40 PM

Dave the Gnome wrote, Only to a dirty mind! :-)

Um -- if you don't have a dirty mind, what are you doing singing "Watkin's Ale"? :-)

Seriously -- everyone knew it was dirty. Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, e.g., printed the tune but said that the text was not suitable for publication, and the early printings, uncharacteristically, omit the printer's name.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 02:15 PM

The key thing about "Watkin's Ale" is to understand that everything has a double meaning. Everything. If you don't see it, you aren't looking hard enough.

Even the title. Why Watkin's ale? "Wat" is of course a perfectly good Middle English name (think Wat Tyler), and -kin is a perfectly good diminutive (for a ballad example, think "Harpkin"), so Watkin on the surface means "little Wat" or "young Wat" or "Wat the lesser."

But "Wat/Wot" also means to know, or to have knowledge or wit. Thus Watkin is, or could be, one of little wit, and Watkin's Ale is, or could be, ale that is dangerous to the unaware.

And an edged tool is a blade or a sword, and a blade or a sword is another name hidden name for the male generative organ, and blade is also one who, er, wields a sword.

And I invite you to think about the multiple meanings of handling, i.e. holding in the hands, a sharp-edged tool.

It really doesn't take a dirty mind to see this -- such things usually pass right over me, and I intensely dislike most rugby songs. All it takes is a mind that is aware of the ambivalency of the meanings of words.

Incidentally, on topics like this, it is worth consulting Eric Partridge's A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. (My copy was given to me by the late Ed Cray, probably because he didn't think my mind was dirty enough!) The very first "unconventional" meaning of "tool" is, in fact, the male generative organ. And this meaning is attested by the sixteenth century. And to grind one's tool, i.e. to sharpen it, is to engage in coitus, although that is not attested as early.

Partridge also documents that "wat" was a nickname for hares, which were famously fecund.

The song has actually acquired more dirtiness in recent years, when "sharp and blunt" has become rhyming cant for... well, you can probably think of a non-printable word that rhymes with "blunt." But that usage is too recent for "Watkin's Ale."

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 02:54 PM

Apparently there is some doubt here that "Wat" is a genuine English name.

It is true that it is not common among the upper classes. It was a lower class name. But it is widely attested. Examples:

The most famous "Wat" in history was surely Wat Tyler (killed 1381): "The most famous leader of the Peasant's Revolt in 1381, Tyler was a man of obscure origins. He may have worked as a tiler in Essex; he was said to have served with Richard Lyons, a wealthy London merchant in France.... He first emerged as a major leader in Kent at the end of the in June 1381, seizing Canterbury on June 10 and heading the march to London on the next day. On June 15 he was the spokesman at Smithfield.... The young king Richard II ordered the mayor [of London], John Walworth, to arrest Tyler, and in a struggle he was killed." (John Cannon, editor, The Oxford Companion to British History, 197; revised edition, Oxford University Press, 2002; entry on Wat TYLER.)

There is a poem in Richard Hill's commonplace book (Balliol MS. 354), generally believed to be a traditional religious song, usually known as "Jolly Wat" or "The Jolly Shepherd Wat." It opens:
The sheperd vpon a hill he satt,
He had on hym his tabard & his hat,
His tarbox, hys pype & and hys flagat;
Hys name was called joly, joly Wat;
For he was a gud herdis boy,
            Vt hoy!
For in his pype he made so mych joy.
Can I not syng but hoy
Whan the joly sheperd made so mych joy.
From Roman Dyboski, Songs, Carols, and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol Ms. 354, Richard Hill's Commonplace Book, Kegan Paul, 1907, item 30, pp. 16-18, leaf 224 in the actual manuscript. The original contains some abbreviations which Dyboski expanded; if anyone actually cares, I can list what they are. Hill collected his material in the reign of the Tudors, starting around 1500 and ending around 1536.

In the General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (lines I.642-643 as numbered in the Variorum Chaucer) we read
And eek ye knowe wel how that a jay
Kan clepen 'Watte' as wel as kan the pope.
In other words,
And also you know well how that a jay
Can call 'Wat' as well as can the pope.
(There are a whole bunch of manuscript variations in those lines, especially in 642, but Hengwrt and Ellesmere agree on the text, and the only variation in Gg is that it omits "how" in 642. And if that statement makes no sense -- ignore it; it's merely more scholarly apparatus.) As for what this means, it's in the description of the Summoner. The interpretation given by Morris in 1874 is that "the jay 'can call Walter (Wat) by his name; just as parrots are taught to say 'Poll.'" Mann in 1973 amplified that this is a traditional satiric form in which a "talking bird... is trained to repeat material beyond his comprehension." In other words, the Summoner parrots the words of his summonses.

So there we have it, from (in effect) three levels of English society: the poor (Wat Tyler), the urban commercial class (Richard Hill was a grocer who collected material from other businessmen), and the aristocracy (Chaucer, born a vintner's son, because a minor member of the gentry who wrote for the nobility). All attest the name "Wat."

I could offer additional information, but I suspect that you all stopped reading long ago anyway. :-) I can't even really say that I blame you. :-)

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 08:17 AM

Guest wrote: "The full name of the song is A Ditty Delightful Of Mother Watkins Ale, a warning well weighed though counted a tale, so it doesn't seem to be the young man that is Watkins."

I made no claim about Watkins. :-) I said WATKIN (no s). :-)

But there are two basic texts of Watkin's Ale. One is the one that begins "There was a maid this other day." The other begins "As Watkin walked by the way." That text seems largely forgotten (I have never seen a full version; it's reportedly from MS. Rawlinson Poet. 185), but clearly it had a character "Watkin" in it.

I don't think we know which text is older, but logic argues for "As Watkin walked by the way." Both texts were considered too dirty to print, so neither can be a bowdlerization of the other. But "There was a maid this other day" is so incredibly clever that I don't think anyone would replace it, except to bowdlerize it. Since it isn't bowdlerized, it is probably a replacement for the text "As Watkin walked...." That's not proof -- but it's typically how you expect things to happen.

Subject: RE: No jesting with edged tools (Watkin's Ale)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 03:19 PM

Please understand that I'm not trying to fight with or insult anyone. I'm just an information junkie. :-) If I don't have either information or logic to supply, I won't post.

Of course, that probably means most people will want to avoid my posts like the plague. :-)