Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese

Subject: Lyr Req: Unknown text
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 05:54 AM

O wise and information-laden Mudcat community - here's a challenge. Anyone recognise this fragment? Is there a fuller text or additional verses that it belongs to? I've searched DT wothout success.

If we go in a farmer's yard
And see a flock of geese
We curse the geese and damn their sides
And knock down five or six

Tom Brown

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 08:36 PM

Well, Tom, a Google search brings up just this thread. I amplified the thread title to see if that brings an answer.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: Effsee
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 09:23 PM

Ehrrrrrrrm, Joe?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: Jeri
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 09:35 PM

I heard it - it was very loud.
I couldn't find anything though, and never heard it before. Quirky little non-rhyme of the sort that comes in dreams. How did it arrive in your head, Tom?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 12:40 PM

It's a one verse fragment of a shanty collected by Cecil Sharp in 1914. Don't ask what the shanty was because it is actually irrelevant. That's a stupid thing to say - people are bound to ask! OK, its Blow away the Morning Dew / Advertised in Boston / etc. - so that doesn't help at all! This particular shantyman had a habit of giving Sharp lyrical folk songs texts to otherwise familiar shanties - but I'm not going into why that was at this juncture.

It's certainly got me stumped as to where it comes from!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 08:57 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:44 AM

Oh,well - looks like a no-hoper. Thanks for trying Joe.
Tom

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 06:45 AM

Looks like it has to be from a song about foxes. Have you searched for those?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:32 AM

Why about a fox?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: Big Mick
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:46 AM

I have searched every poetry fragment database I could think of and found nothing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 10:17 AM

From Shanties from the Seven Seas: Shipboard Work-songs and Songs
Stan Hugill, 1961



BLOW YE WINDS (a)

verse 3:
When we goes in a farmer's yard an' sees a great big duck,
We catch him an' we wring his neck, if we have any luck.

Chorus
Singing blow, ye winds in the mornin',
Blow, ye winds, high-ho!
Sea all clear yer runnin' gear,
An' blow, me bully boys, blow!

Hugill states that the following is sometimes used in the above verse:

We dang their eyes and curse their thighs and knock down five or six.

There's an online version at Google Books.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 10:39 AM

It's page 220 (online version), by the way.

Try Googling terry blow ye winds, it gets you close.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unknown text - See a Flock of Geese
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 01:11 PM

Thanks guys - yes, that's the one - I know about those - both Sharp & Terry had it from John Short - he's the shantyman I was referring to. Hugill/Terry/Sharp mix in other floating verses - I still can't identify the song source of the geese/duck verse(s).