> Tim Hart & Maddy Prior > Songs > The Brisk Butcher

The Butcher and the Chambermaid / The Brisk Butcher

[ Roud 167 ; Ballad Index DTxmasgo ; trad.]

A.L. Lloyd sang The Butcher and the Chambermaid in 1956 on his Riverside album English Drinking Songs and on the 1961 Topic reissue EP All for Me Grog: English Drinking Songs. He commented in the sleeve notes:

Here we have a racy song, come down from the North-East. Now doubt it is a tale all to true. Mr Tom Cook, from whom we got the song, has one eye and one ear-ring. He said he sang it “in honour of the ladies, as free of their hips as of their lips, God bless their skill.” The ladies present saluted gracefully by raising their gleaming pint mugs.

Maddy Prior sang The Brisk Butcher in 1968 on her and Tim Hart's first duo album Folk Songs of Old England Vol. 1. By any standards, this butcher is a nasty sort of guy. The record's sleeve notes comment:

This song was first published on a broadsheet in the 19th century as the Leicester Chamber Maid. Like so many ballads of this period a simple girl is beguiled by an amorous city gentleman, yet she finally triumphs with much celebration, and the ballad concludes with a fine moral. (Nottingham University Library Collection)

Lyrics

Maddy Prior sings The Brisk Butcher

It's of a brisk young butcher as I have heard them say,
He started out of London town all on a certain day.
Says he, “A frolic I will have, my fortune for to try;
I will go into Leicestershire some cattle for to buy.”

When he arrived at Leicester town he came into an inn,
He called for an hostler and boldly he walked in.
He called for liquor of the best, he being a roving blade,
And quickly fixed his eyes upon the lovely chambermaid.

When she took up a candle to light him up to bed,
And when she came into the room, these words to her he said:
“One sovereign I will give to you all to enjoy your charms.”
And this fair maid all night to sleep all in the butcher's arms.

'Twas early the next morning he prepared to go away,
The landlord said, “Your reckoning, sir, you have forgot to pay”
“Oh no”, the butcher did reply “pray do not think it strange,
One sovereign I gave your maid and I haven't got the change.”

They straight way called the chambermaid and charged her with the same,
The golden sovereign she laid down, prepared she'd get the blame.
The butcher then went home, well pleased with what was passed
And soon this pretty chambermaid grew thick about the waist.

'Twas in a twelve months after he came to town again
And then as he had done before he stopped at that same inn.
'Twas then the buxom chambermaid she chanced him for to see,
She brought a babe just three months old and placed him on his knee.

The butcher sat like one amazed and at the child did stare
But when the joke he did find out, how he did stamp and swear.
She said, “Kind sir, it is your own, pray do not think it strange:
One Sovereign you gave to me and here I've brought your change.”

So come all you brisk and lively blades, I pray be ruled by me,
Look well into your bargains before your money pay.
Or soon perhaps your folly will give you cause to range
If ever you sport with pretty maids be sure to get your change.