> Eliza Carthy > Songs > Picking up Sticks / The Old Mole / Felton Lonnin / Kingston Girls

Felton Lonnin

[ Roud 3166 ; Ballad Index StoR150 ; trad.]

Felton Lonnin is a song from J. Collingwood Bruce and John Stokoe's Northumbrian Minstrelsy (1882).

The High Level Ranters sang Felton Lonnin in 1971 on their Trailer album High Level and in 1983 on their Topic LP Border Spirit. The first album's sleeve notes comment:

Felton Lonnin is a rural Northumbrian song about a child lost across the fields. The tune is more familiar in the faster jig version that is played at the end of the song.

Aistair Anderson played Felton Lonnin in 1978 on his Topic album Corby Ceag.

Eliza Carthy and Eleanor Waterson sang two verses of Felton Lonnin on Eliza Carthy's album Rice with Saul Rose, melodeon, Ed Boyd, guitar, and Billericay Fontenot, guitar.

Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies recorded Felton Lonnen in September 1991 for the Fellside anthology Voices. And Rachel Unthank & The Winterset sang Felton Lonnin in 2007 on their second CD, The Bairns.

Lyrics

O the kye cam y'ame but I saw not me hinny
O the kye cam y'ame but I saw not me bairn
And I'd rather lost all the kye than lost me hinny
I'd rather lost all the kye than lost me bairn

Fair faced is me hinny and his blues eyes are shinin'
His hair hung in ringlets all sweet to me sight
So mount the old pony and gar and seek after him
And bring to his mummy her only delight

And he's always out roamin' the long summer day through
He's always out roamin' away from the farm
O'er hedges and ditches and valleys and fellside
I hope that me bairnie hae cam to no harm

For I've searched in the meadow and in the four acre
And stockyards and fowlyards but naught did I find
So come along daddy and seek for your laddie
And bring to his mummy some peace to her mind

Acknowledgements

The song is discussed in two threads on the Mudcat Café: Lyr Add: Felton Lonnen, and Lyr Add: Felton Lonnin' / Lonnen / Lonn.