ADD: Spindle earworm / Servant Girl’s Holiday

Subject: Spindle earworm
From: GUEST,Cusco1950
Date: 30 Dec 24 - 03:20 PM

I’ve got a severe earworm in combination with memory failure.

Which song does this refrain belong to - “Spindle,bobbin and spoon away” belong to. It’s strayed just that bit too far from narrow path and won’t come back.

TIA

Subject: RE: Spindle earworm
From: Helen
Date: 30 Dec 24 - 03:49 PM

Earworm fever - I know it well!

https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/servinggirlsholiday.html

The Servant Girl’s Holiday

I’ve waited longing for today:
Spindle, bobbin, and spool, away!
In joy and bliss I’m off to play
Upon this high holiday.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Spindle, bobbin, and spool, away,
For joy that it’s a holiday!

The dirt upon the floor’s unswept,
The fireplace isn’t cleaned and kept,
I haven’t cut the rushes yet
Upon this high holiday.

The cooking herbs I must fetch in,
And fix my kerchief under my chin.
Darling Jack, lend me a pin
To fix me well this holiday!

Now midday has almost come,
And all my chores are still not done
I’ll clean my shoes till they become
Bright for a high holiday.

In pails the milk has got to go;
I ought to spread this bowl of dough -
It clogs my nails and fingers so
As I knead this holiday!

Jack will take me on my way,
And with me he will want to play:
I needn’t fear my lady’s nay
On such a high holiday!

And when we stop beside the track
At the inn this Sunday, Jack
Will wet my whistle and pay my whack
As on every holiday.

Then he’ll take me by the hand
And lay me down upon the land
And make my buttocks feel like sand
Upon this high holiday.

In he’ll push and out he’ll go,
With me beneath him lying low:
“By God’s death, you do me woe
Upon this high holiday.”

Soon my belly began to swell
As round and great as any bell;
And to my dame I dared not tell
What happened to me that holiday.
Maddy Prior sings Serving Girl’s Holiday

I’ve waited longing for today:
Spindle, bobbin and spool, away!
In joy and bliss I’m off to play
Upon this high holiday.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
And spindle, bobbin and spool, away,
For joy that it’s a holiday!

The dirt upon the floor’s unswept,
The fireplace isn’t cleaned and kept.
I haven’t cut the rushes yet
Upon this high holiday.

In pails the milk has got to go;
I have to spread this bowl of dough —
It clogs my nails and fingers so
As I knead this high holiday.

The cooking herbs I must fetch in
And fix my kerchief under my chin.
Darling Jack, lend me a pin
To fix me well this holiday!

And when we stop beside the track
At the inn, this Sunday, Jack
Will whet my whistle and pay my whack
As on every holiday.
Kate Rusby sings Serving Girl’s Holiday

I’ve waited longing for today:
Spindle, bobbin and spool, away!
In joy and bliss I’m off to play
Upon this high holiday.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
And spindle, bobbin and spool, away,
For joy that is high a holiday!

The floors haven’t been cleaned or swept,
The fireplace hasn’t cleaned or kept.
I haven’t cut the rushes yet
Upon this high holiday.

The milk into the pails must go:
I have to roll this bowl of dough —
It clogs my nails and fingers so
Upon this high holiday.

And when we stop along the track
Unto the inn, this Sunday, Jack
Will whet my whistle and pay my whack
Upon this high holiday.

(repeat first verse)

Subject: RE: ADD: Spindle earworm / Servant Girl’s Holiday
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 24 - 05:24 PM

Thank you kindly. More verses than I remember but that’s the one.

Subject: RE: ADD: Spindle earworm / Servant Girl’s Holiday
From: Helen
Date: 30 Dec 24 - 05:35 PM

The page I linked to mentioned some other versions of the song, including:

"Kate Rusby sang an even shorter Serving Girl’s Holiday in 2008 on her CD Sweet Bells."

Subject: RE: ADD: Spindle earworm / Servant Girl’s Holiday
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 30 Dec 24 - 06:34 PM

It should be noted that every version of this is extremely heavily modernized. Nor is there much reason to think it is traditional, except possibly for the company it keeps. There is only one source, Cambridge, Caius College MS. 383, from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. It contains no other verifiable folk songs, though there were two others that I included in the Ballad Index as items that might be folky.

Richard Leighton Greene, editor, The Earliest English Carols, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1935, p. xcv, while admitting he has no proof, thinks this one of two carols in Caius 383 that, "because of their homeliness, their directness of speech, and their theme of the betrayed girl, have a strong case for consideration as authentic folk-song." But other equally eminent scholars have disagreed.

The poem is written as prose in the manuscript. The text is old enough that it apparently still used þ and &yogh; instead of th and gh, and u/v and i/j/y are still one. I'm not going to try to transcribe it all, since I've had trouble with unicode on mudcat before. But I'll give you a couple of verses, as transcribed in Rossell Hope Robbins, Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, p. 24.

Wybbe ne rele ne spynne yc ne may,
ffor ioyȝe þat it ys holyday.

Al þus day ic han souȝt
spyndul ne werue ne wond y nouȝt
To myche blisse ic am brout
aȝen þis hyȝe holyday.

There are ten verses. The last is

sone my wombe began to swelle
as greth as a belle;
durst y nat my dame telle
Wat me betydde þis holyday.

That is one of the easiest verses to modernize, so I'll modernize it so you'll know I'm not kidding about that being the song. :-)

Soon my womb began to swell
As great as a bell
Dare I not my dame tell
What me betide this holiday.

Subject: RE: ADD: Spindle earworm / Servant Girl’s Holiday
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 30 Dec 24 - 06:37 PM

Correction to my previous post, if you didn't spot it. In the third paragraph, that should be ȝ instead of &yogh;. Doing Middle English in Mudcat is a true pain. :-p