Lyr Req: The Fox and the Hare

Subject: pretty little rabbit so engaging
From:
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 06:59 AM

I'm looking for the lyrics to a song I heard all the time when I lived in Newfoundland. It was one of those widow-looking-for-her-next-husband plots. The only part I remember is the chorus: the fox and the bear the something and the hare and the birds up in the trees and the pretty little rabbit so engaging in its habit, they've all got a mate but me.

I think she had six husbands and was working on number seven. Thanks ever so much, Wendy Welch Fife, Scotland

Subject: RE: pretty little rabbit so engaging
From: Philippa
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 07:38 AM

I believe the song is in the Jimmy Crowley songbook

Subject: Lyr Add: THE FOX AND THE HARE^^
From: Philippa
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 08:05 AM

THE FOX AND THE HARE

Good Christians all, both great and small
All you that feel inclined
Your care bestowed on a fellow full of gold
I'm almost out of my mind.
All the wives I had, they're all gone and dead
Me love has laboured in vain
I have married, I have buried,
I am very nearly married
And I'm sick from wives in the brain.

chorus:
The fox and the hare and
The badger and the bear,
The birds in the greenwood treet
All the pretty little rabbits so engaging in their habits
And they all having mates but me.

The first in my page was little Sally Sage
She once was a lady's maid
But she ran away, one very dark day
With a fellow with a white fish tray.
The next day she was hook[ed], she was a beauty and a cook
And I'll tell you the reason why:
On her back she had a hump, on her leg she had a stump
She had a little squint in her eye.

The next day she was a charm, a little girl with a farm
Well versed in harrows and ploughs
As she gathered a rig of lots of little pigs
She squuezes new milk from the cows.
She was sixteen stone, all muscle and bone
She looked with an awful stare
Alas she could be mine, but she fell into decline
For she swallowed up a mouse in her beer.

The next that came along was a bright and jolly dame
With a purse as long as my arm
It was full of yellow gold, it was a beauty to behold
With a heart of the miser's charm.
Her only sin was a love of gin
It brought our hopes to wreck
For she slipped on her heel on a piece of orange peel
She fell down and broke her neck.

To add to my score I had half a dozen more
My list goes a long way's round
Some crossed o'er the sea for a better chap than me
Whilst more of them were hanged and drowned
The last one I had, through drink she went mad
In vain I tried to stop her
Sorrow was my tale; I discovered one day
She was slowly boiled to death in a coffer.

traditional song, as sung by Jimmy Crowley. Published in "Jimmy Crowley's Irish Song Book", Cork: Mercier Press, 1986

Click to play^^

Subject: Fox and the hare
From:
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 08:06 AM

how about the women's version, as Wendy heard it? - Philippa

Subject: the Fox and the Hare / pretty little rabbit
From: Philippa
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 03:08 PM

thanks to Alison, there's an abc for the song as sung by Jimmy Crowley in the Fox and the Hare thread