Lyr Req: Wooden-Legged Parson

Subject: Lyr Req: 'Wooden-legged Parson'
From: BO in KY
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 11:36 PM

I remember seeing the music and lyrics to this funny song in a collection of Irish (I think) ballads but can't remember when or which. Anybody know how I can get hold of the words/tune, or any info about the song?? It appears not to be in the Digitrad.

Thanks in advance!

Peace y'all,
Bo

Subject: ADD: 'Wooden-legged Parson'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Feb 04 - 02:06 AM

In this message, Mudcatter Dan Milner (Liam's Brother) says he has it in his Bonny Bunch of Roses songbook. Sure enough, there it is.
-Joe Offer-

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The Wooden Leg'd Parson

A barber there was named Timothy Briggs,
Quite famous he was for making good wigs;
Till with a lass called Becky Bell,
Slap over the ears in love he fell.

Sing: Rumble dum dairy rumble dum dey!
Mark well the truth that I say.

So they went to the church the knot to tie,
To a wooden leg'd parson named Jonathan Sly,
If you'd seen him you'd have laughed at him plump,
As he mounted the pulpit with a stump.

Sing: Rumble dum dairy...

They'd been married a week or two,
When Becky turned out a most terrible shrew,
"No comfort I have with this woman," he said.
"I'll go back to the parson and get unwed."

So he went to the parson, and he said, "Mr. Sly,
If I live with this woman I surely shall die.
You know, sir, you made us two into one,
So I'm come for to know if we can't be undone."

The parson said, "That is a thing rather new.
I don't know that I've the power my flock to undo;
But in hopes that you'll lead a more happy life,
I'll call at your house and admonish your wife."

The barber, quite pleased, went taking his glass,
And the parson stumped off to lecture the lass;
When the barber went home, la, what did he see,
But the parson with Becky a top of his knee.

The barber at this bristled up every hair,
Says he, "Mr. Sly, what are you doing there?"
"Why you know that you wanted undoing, my man,
So you see that I'm trying as fast as I can."

"Yes, I think I'm undone as I ne'er was before."
So he kicked Mr. Parson straight out of the door,
Where he lay in the street, and his wooden leg stood
Like a spade sticking up in a cart load of mud.

They lived after this rather more reconciled,
And in nine months from then she brought him a child,
But the barber hung himself up on a peg,
When he found the child born with a new wooden leg.


Other songs in this genre are "The Parson and the Maid" and "The Parson and the Clerk." John Roberts supplied the chorus and tune, a variant of "The Three Cripples" or "John Brown's Old Mare."
Source: Text from a Such broadside; chorus and tune from John Roberts.

The book was published in 1983, so no doubt this was in John's younger days...

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Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Wooden-legged Parson'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 12 Feb 04 - 02:23 AM

These are at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

wooden leg'd parson [title]

wooden legged parson [title]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Wooden-legged Parson'
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Feb 04 - 09:18 AM

An English broadside song. Masato has already provided links.

Number 1508 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The references are mostly to broadside copies, but there are a few examples listed from tradition, one as recent as 1984 (Bill House, Dorset).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Wooden-legged Parson'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 01:10 AM

tune added - see links above

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Wooden-legged Parson'
From: GUEST,BO in KY
Date: 14 Feb 04 - 11:02 PM

Thank you all so much for the wonderful help and information. I performed this at a civic club gathering and got a great response - lots of laughter! Thanks again - you folks never cease to impress and amaze me.

Peace,
Bo

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Wooden-legged Parson'
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 15 Feb 04 - 05:57 AM

A version was published, as "Timothy Briggs the Barber", in Sam Richards' and Tish Stubbs' 1979 anthology, "The English Folksinger". The note says, "Sung by Arthur Wood, Middlesborough (sic), Cleveland. Collected by Colin Wharton, early 1960s. In the archives of the Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies, Leeds University."

The text is very similar to the one given above, but the girl is called Betsy, not Becky, and in the penultimate verse the rhyme is "stuck" and "muck" not "stood" and "mud".

Kitty