Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: GUEST,Tamosher
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 04:29 PM

Isn't a tamoshor what is beneath man's kilt?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: Tradsinger
Date: 31 Mar 10 - 05:09 AM

Quite common in England and versions usually start

Pretty little maiden (or Sarah) sweeping up the roon
She undid her apron strings to give her belly room
etc

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: GUEST,anniemcu
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 09:16 PM

Guesses... "row'd" probably equates to 'rolled'.
"tamosher" possibly refers to the cap of the appendage used to deliver the second half of the makings of a 'bairn', which then needs 'weans'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: GUEST,Mags
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 10:06 PM

Thank you to all for your enlightening responses!

Another technical question about the darn apron :) The lyrics use the phrase "row'd it aneath my apron" and I'm wondering physically how this would work.

Would a woman put things in her apron, meaning on top, and lifting up the bottom corners to hold the contents in when she was carrying something somewhere, or was this some how literally meaning underneath her apron and rolled up. I guess I'm verifying what 'row' means, because the OED isn't clearing it up for me. Thanks, everyone!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 07:55 PM

Stays - whalebone or other material sewn into garments to give shape. Also refers to the garment itself, so stays = corset = stomacher. The stay-maker would have made the item to measure, so might well have had an intimate acquaintance with the clients - but as a skilled tradesman would still be preferred by the father over a "vagabond or loon".

"Goun" is the same as "gown". pronounced to rhyme with "loon", which simply means "boy" or "lad" in the Doric - lowland Scots dialect of the North-East of Scotland.

Ross

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: GUEST,Mag
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 06:28 PM

I actually knew the stomacher part - but I was looking more at 'bear up my goun' - is that gown? I just caught that - the version I had typed 'goun' as 'goon' which meant something else completely!

So, why the jump to 'it's neither vagabond nor loon' - just being defensive? :)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 04:43 PM

She didn't tell her father she was pregnant. A 'stomacher' is an article of clothing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tamosher (Battlefield Band)
From: GUEST,Mag
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 04:31 PM

Question about the content of those verses - any suggestions as to why she'd tell her father she was pregnant by the stay maker, but tell her mother she was only protecting her clothes?

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 08 May 07 - 05:21 AM

Janet, some notes:

[1978:] Alan learnt this song from 'Tocher' magazine [...]. It was collected from Bessie Whyte, who is of travelling stock but now lives in Montrose. We hope she doesn't mind the slight changes we have made in our arrangement of the song. Bessie says that the "Tamosher is the thing that makes weans [...]." (Notes Battlefield Band, 'At the Front')

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 May 07 - 01:05 PM

A variant of "tumshie" meaning "turnip"? (Swede in English, rutabaga in American).

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: GUEST,janet
Date: 07 May 07 - 12:50 PM

thank you finally for the lyrics! Now can anyone tell me what the hell a tamosher is and why she bundled it and put in her apron?

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 06:36 PM

[I had forgotten about this one. This Scots version has some big differences. Untitled in G. R. Kinloch's 'The Ballad Book', #21, 1827]

It fell on a morning, a morning in May,
My father's cows they all went astray,
I loutit me down, and the heather was gay,
And a burr stack to my apron.

O! ance my apron it was wide,
But now my knees it will scarcely hide,
And O the grief I do bide,
When I look to my apron.

O! ance my apron it was new,
But now it's gotten anither hue,
But now it's gotten anither hue,
There's a braw lad below my apron.

I saw my father on the stair,
Kaiming doun his yellow hair,
Says- "What is that ye've gotten there,
Sae weel row'd aneath your apron?"

It's no a vagabond, nor yet a loon-
He's the rarest stay-maker in a' the toun,
And he's made a stomacher to bear up my goun,
And I row'd it aneath my apron.

I saw my mither on the stair,
Kaiming doun her yellow hair,
Says- "What's that ye've gotten there;
Sae weel row'd aneath your apron?"

It is my mantle and my shirt,
I had nae will to daidle it,
I had nae will to daidle it,
And I row'd it aneath my apron.

As I was walking up the street,
Wi' silver slippers on my feet,
O! aye my friends I'd ill will to meet,
And my braw lad row'd in my apron.

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 01:33 AM

Tunes now added on my website. I think few Child ballads are better than this, and think Child missed the boat by not including it, although the SMM text may have been the only one known in Child's time.

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 11:54 PM

I had forgotten that I had long ago typed it up. The Scots Musical Museum text is in the Scarce Songs 1 file on my website. www.erols.com/olsonw. I seem to have neglected to give the tune. I'll try to remember to do that tomorrow.

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 11:46 PM

The English title is often "Three maids a-rushing" (Sharp, Baring Gould).

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 11:26 PM

See 'Underneath her Apron' in DT for a version.

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 10:26 PM

That looks like an expurgated version of "The Rowin't in her apron", a rather uncommon folksong. There's an incomplete version (but more complete than that above) in 'The Scots Musical Museum', #424. There are also a few English traditional versions. I have long suspected that it's the original on which "Willie o' Winsbury' was based. Two verses of the above are only slightly different in the SMM text.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE TAMOSHER (Battlefield Band)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 06:30 PM

The Tamosher
(Battlefield Band)

There were twa bonnie lassies and they were dressed in blue
And they went out some rushes for tae pu'
And yin o' them caught wee thing before she did return
And she bundled it and put it in her apron

The first man that she met was her faither on the stair
Oh daughter dear daughter what have you got there
Who gave to you the tamosher to wear the starched gown
And you bundled it and put it in your apron

Oh was it to the baker or was it to the clown
Or was it to the bonnie boy that sails the world around
Who gave to you the tamosher to wear the starched gown
And you bundled it and put it in your apron

It wasn't to the baker it wasn't to the clown
It was to the bonnie boy that sails the world around
He gave to me the tamosher to wear the starched gown
And I bundled it and put it in my apron

Repeat 1

Subject: RE: The Tamosher
From: Philippa
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 10:09 AM

The School of Scottish Studies website has some samples from Tocher, but the PEARL server is being upgraded and isn't currently available to search for Tamosher. You might try another day. In the meantime, the school's address, etc, is on the web page.

Subject: RE: The Tamosher(Battlefield Band)
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 09:48 AM

I don't have them, but they say they learned it from 'Tocher' magazine, a publication of selections from the archives of the School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University. You could try contacting the school or libraries that may carry the publication.

Cheers, Stewie.

Subject: The Tamosher
From: Lars
Date: 03 Nov 99 - 06:11 AM

Has anyone got the lyrics for The Tamosher sung by Battlefield Band on their ablbum: At the Front ?