Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer

Subject: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: GUEST,Jeremy
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 11:30 AM

The song database has the refrain 'Castors away' but I have some doubts as to whether it should be 'Cast us away' instead. Does anyone know which is correct and also what the song is all about.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:03 PM

It was collected from tradition as "castors away".  A.L. Lloyd wondered whether it might mean "hats off", "castor" being a slang word for a (beaver) hat, or perhaps "cast us away".  Nobody really knows.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:22 PM

It has always seemed to me to be silly....I am convinced that the war was the war between the Englishman and the flee, with metaphores implied... and a castor, or caster more likely, to be a person spreading fleas. This is the work of a childs brain, and though I never really discussed it, I felt this meaning...And still do...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 03:00 PM

Not so much silly, perhaps, as Mock Heroic.  My own feeling is that it's just another of those songs taking the piss out of tailors (though a particularly good one, with a fine tune) with no deeper meaning.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 03:15 PM

Malcolm, I don't get the phrase "taking the piss out of". care to explain? I'm quite interested, as I like the song , sing the song, grew up with the song,...etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 03:51 PM

See comments on an earlier thread by searching 'Bowmaneer'. 'A Tailor is no man', and 'It takes nine tailors to make a man' are rather old expressions. See 'Between two Foxes' in Scarce Songs 1 on my website for two short 16th century poems on 'brave' tailors, and the note following it on the "Battle of the Tailor and Louse/ Mouse", and following that, the ballad on the tailor with an inadequate yard.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 04:24 PM

Thomas:  Sorry; British slang.  It just means "to mock", though a little more vulgar.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: oggie
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 06:48 PM

'Nine Tailors maketh a man in God' is thought also to refer to the 'tellers' or passing bells which were rung when a death occurred in a parish. In rural Lincolnshire the pasiing bell was 9 rings or a man, 6 for a women or 3 for a child, followed by one bell for every year they had lived. In close communities that would usually tell you who had died.

All the best

Steve

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 07:07 PM

Thank you. Once again I am out classed by men of letters and indeed it is consoling to be treated as though my questions are not slovenly... sls (singer learns slowly)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Jimmy C
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 12:03 AM

I believe that Malcolm is correct about CASTER or CASTOR referring to a hat ( beaver ). There is an Irish song called "Johnston's Motor car" one part of which goes

"He then put on his castor hat
and on his breast a star.

Slainte

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Benjamin Bowmaneer
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 03:03 AM

In Websters unabridged 1961 Castor def. #4
'A heavy wool cloth used especially for men's overcoats'