Lyr Req: The Burnt Old Man -Translation, Please

Subject: Lyr Req: The Burnt Old Man -Translation, Please
From: Skivee
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 10:27 PM

A friend of mine is interested in performing several rude songs and asked for some suggestions. I recalled hearing Triona from the Bothy Band singing "The Burnt Old Man". She discribed a very general outline, but wouldn't sing it in English because it was too rude.
The basic story: A fellow is not happy with his wife's skills as a lover and runs off to the big city (Dublin?) to sample the "sophisticated diversions" of urban life.
After a month in a bordello the whores send him home...a burnt old man with his tail and not much else between his legs.
I've searched for an English version without luck.
Do any of my fellow muddies know this song in English?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Burnt Old Man -Translation, Pleas
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:46 AM

Hey, Skivee...remember how I said that if it were in Kennedy it would be cleaned up? I must have vaguely remembered this, because it IS in Kennedy, on page 108, song number 45, Irish title An Seanduine Doighte.   The English lyrics aren't THAT rude, but they're somewhat rude. Contains the lines:

I sent my old man to the west of the country
Where there are whores one thousand and twenty
His genitals lessened and his jaws became bony
and he came back to me as a newly-born pony.

That should be useable, if we replace "genitals" with something less, er, geniteel, and "jaws" with something more likely to become bony through withering away...such as his arse.

I can tell our mutual friend tomorrow, she has access to the book at home AND at work.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Burnt Old Man -Translation, Please
From: Skivee
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 01:34 AM

Thanks for that, oh nerdy one.
I'm beginning to see that the translation may lose a wee bit of the lyric poetic quality of the original Gaelic.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Burnt Old Man -Translation, Please
From: Skivee
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 01:08 PM

As much as I appreciate the Nerd's comments...are there other versions out there in cyber-ether land?

Subject: Lyr Add: AN SEANDUINE DOIGHTE (in English)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:03 PM

I found this at https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9706&L=irtrad-l&D=1&P=126966, where it is said to be copied from Peter Kennedy's book "Folksongs of Britain and Ireland":

AN SEANDUINE DOIGHTE

1) I put my buttermilk into the coffer
To drink buttermilk and barley-bread scoffer
If he'd stick out his head I'd snap off his nose
Leave the rest of his body for all the young girls

Chorus:
O my old man O pity I fed you
O my old man O pity I wed you
O my old man O pity I bed you
Sleepin' your sleep for ever and ever

2) If my old man he got what he wanted
A few bites of meat and a dollop of butter
The fat of the churn and some roasted potatoes
Wouldn't he sport among all the young ladies?

3) To Ballinrobe street I sent my old fellow
Buckled-up shoes and a hat with a feather
Three were enticing him, kissing him four of them
They told me in Galway he went off with all of them

4) I went to the store to get all of my turf in
Looking for baccy and planks for a coffin
When I got home I felt like a mourner
I got my old man, stuck him down in a corner

5) If you were to see my old man about midnight
His foot on the hob and getting his pipe 'light
Nine of the hen's eggs boiled in the firelight
If he didn't do it then right, he'll never do it now right

6) I sent my old man to the west of the country
Where there were whores one thousand and twenty
His genitals lessened and his jaws became bony
And he came back to me like a newly born pony

7) If I found my old fellow drowned in a bog-hole
Then I'd fetch him home and I'd yell in his lug-hole
I'd lock up the door and I'd pocket the key-o
And all the young fellows would walk out with me-o

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Burnt Old Man -Translation, Please
From: Skivee
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:33 PM

Thanks, Jim ol' Bean
I'll pass it along