Help: Going to Banbury?

Subject: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: Lucius
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 07:13 PM

My students called me on this today:

As I was going to Banbury Ri fol latitee O As I was going to Banbury I saw a line coddlin apple tree With a ri fol latitee O.

What in blazes is a line coddlin?

Subject: RE: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: Snuffy
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 07:28 PM

A codling is an apple (or a young cod).

Subject: RE: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: Lucius
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 09:56 PM

Thanks Snuffy, it wasn't in the dictionary.

Lucius

Subject: RE: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 02:57 AM

I sing 'I saw a fine codling apple tree'.

Subject: RE: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 05:14 AM

Cecil Sharp got this song in 1909 from Sister Emma of Clewer in Berkshire, and originally noted her text as fine coddlin apple tree; the spelling was normalised to codling on later publication. The DT text, GOING TO BANBURY is as quoted from Sharp's MS in James Reeves' The Idiom of the People (1958), though the title has been abbreviated from that used by Sharp (and presumably Sister Emma), As I Was Going to Banbury. line is one of several small typos in the file.

In The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1952), Iona and Peter Opie comment, "The fact that so many nursery pieces mention Banbury may, in part, be due to the energy of the printer, Rusher. Working at Banbury he often altered the wording to suit local patronage, but his influence was more than local. His juvenile publications are among the commonest chapbooks surviving today."

Sister Emma was the source of interesting versions of a good few songs, including LONG LANKIN, though regrettably the DT file, copied from The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (1959) does not credit her.

Subject: RE: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: Lucius
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 09:18 PM

What great information, thanks. I'm having trouble with another fine line as well, the:

And one of the men saw was dead So I sent for a hatchet to open his head

Would the world spin off its axis if I added "that I" in the middle of the first line? I promise that I will sing fine and not line from now on, and I won't lecture on the folk process. ;-)

Subject: RE: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 06:18 AM

The DT file was carelessly typed; that line too contains a mistake. Sister Emma sang And one of the men I saw was dead.

Subject: RE: Help: Going to Banbury?
From: GUEST,Bullfrog Jones (on the road)
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 05:00 AM

Slight thread creep...in another Banbury nursery rhyme, Ride a Cock horse to Banbury Cross, the reference is to a horse hired from The Cock Hotel here in Stony Stratford. The Cock Hotel was a famous coaching house, and Stony the last stop before London (or the first stop out of London).The horses were changed or rested and the passengers would stay overnight at The Cock or the hotel next door, The Bull, where they would pass the time telling stories. Over the course of a drunken night the stories would become more and more embellished and pass backwards and forwards between the two establishments, creating a new genre in storytelling --- the Cock and Bull story! Both pubs are still here today, The Cock being home to the Songloft Folk Club on alternate Fridays and The Bull hosting an excellent Sunday lunchtime session in The Vaults Bar, where you will often find me and The One And Only Dai (or Dai Trying as we know him) continuing the fine traditions of the hostelries (i.e.getting drunk and talking bull).