> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > The Foggy Dew
> Shirley Collins > Songs > The Foggy Dew
> Martin Carthy > Songs > The Foggy Dew

The Foggy Dew

[ Roud 558 ; Laws O3 ; Ballad Index LO03 ; trad.]

A.L. Lloyd sang The Foggy Dew in 1956 on his Riverside album English Drinking Songs, on the 1961 Topic reissue EP All for Me Grog: English Drinking Songs, and on his Fellside anthology Classic A.L. Lloyd. He commented in the first album's sleeve notes:

This true-life story is known in many forms. Sometimes the girl is frightened by a ghost: the “bugaboo”. Sometimes she seems disturbed by the weather: the “foggy dew”. Some say the foggy dew is a virginity symbol; others say the words are there by accident or corruption, and all the girl was pretending to be frightened of was ghosts. Whatever the case, she creeps to the roving bachelor for comfort, and gets what she came for. The Irish have it as a sentimental piece of blarney, the Scots as a brief bawdy guffaw; students have coarsened the song, and Benjamin Britten has refined it. The East Anglian country-folk have it straightest, and sing it without a laugh or a tear or a nudge in the ribs, just as it happened. The Foggy Dew is known all over Britain, yet rarely seen in its full form in print, which is odd, for the song is eminently decent in its best traditional forms. It's not a drinking song, but it's often sung in drinking plaves.

Shirley Collins recorded The Foggy Dew twice in 1958/59. The first version is on False True Lovers and on her anthology Classic Collection; the other is the title track of her Collector EP The Foggy Dew and is also included in her anthology Within Sound. Alan Lomax commented in her original recording's sleeve notes:

From Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, Volume II, [this] is one of the few of the frankly erotic songs so common in Southern England to survive more or less uncensored in American tradition. Its centre of dispersal seems to have been the Suffolk-Norfolk area, where it still can be heard being roared out in remote country pubs…

And ev-er-y time she cocks her leg,
I thinks of the fo–o–ggy de-ew.

This ribald variant has been frequently broadcast over the BBC, which in spite of its occasional stodginess, makes our American radio and television networks seem old-maidish. However, Miss Collins prefers the version that Sharp found in Calloway, Virginia. I quote her: “I think that this is the most beautiful version of the song to be found anywhere. To me, it's the only version that doesn't have a sneer behind it; it's truly tender and loving.” But James Reeves, the author of The Idiom of the People, says, “it has a rough coherence, but surely none of the subtlety or the emotional and psychological interest of English versions.”—and “it is an example of the hopeless confusion resulting from evident misunderstanding of traditional symbolism.” However, I'm sure for girls everywhere, the Virginian variant wins hands down…

A much longer version with a tragic end—which only shares two verses with Lloyd—was sung by Martin Carthy on his album Waiting for Angels and live in December 2004 at Ruskin Mill. He said in the former album's sleeve notes:

Mike Waterson will occasionally sing The Foggy Dew to the tune which he learned from a recording of the stentorian Norfok singer Phil Hammond. Mr Hammond was a country boy who had risen to the rank of Major in the British army and had learned this beautifully complete way of the song from an unnamed forestry worker and who, having forgotten the man's tune, had colonised the better known Britten/Pears version, and made it his own. It's not so much misunderstood as a song as utterly “not” understood—really because the standard version is so truncated. The tune here is from the incomparable Harry Fox who sang The Barley Straw to it. Harry Cox's singing in exquisite (always) but the sentiments of that song leave me not feeling too good, so I burgled its tune and this is the result.

Phil Hammond's recording mentioned above was recorded by Peter Kennedy in Holt, Norfolk and published on the Caedmon/Topic anthology Songs of Seduction (The Folk Songs of Britain Vol. 2, Caedmon 1961; 12T158, 1968) And Harry Cox sang The Foggy Dew on Folk Song Today; and on What Will Become of England?; this was collected by Peter Kennedy too.

Compare this to The Foggy Dew sung by both Bill Whaley & Dave Fletcher and by Martyn Wyndham-Read on the 2CD anthology Song Links: A Celebration of English Traditional Songs and their Australian Variants. In both of these versions the girl gets pregnant too but they both have a happy ending.

Damien Barber recorded The Foggy Dew in 1995 for his album Boxed (which wasn't released before 2000).

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd sings The Foggy Dew	Martin Carthy sings The Foggy Dew
When I was a bachelor young and bold, I followed the roving trade. And all the harm that ever I done, I courted a handsome maid. I wooed her all the summertime, And a part of the winter too. And the only harm that ever I done Was to keep off the foggy dew.	Oh, when I was a bachelor early and young I followed the weaving trade. All the harm that ever I done Was in courtin' a fair young maid. I courted her in the summertime, And all through the winter too. And the only thing I ever did wrong Was keep her from the foggy dew.
	Well, I got that tired of living alone, I says to her one day, “I've a nice little cod in my old shack, Where you could safely lay. You'll be all right in the summertime, And all through the winter, too, You'll be snug and warm and you'll take no harm, All out of the foggy dew.”
	“Well, I don't think much to your old shack, As I will lonely be, With only your old Cyprus cat For to keep me company. With crickets chirping in the hearth(?) But whatever can they do, When the night turns raw and the fire won't draw, To keep me from the foggy dew?”
It was all on one night about twelve o'clock, When I lay fast asleep. There came this maid to my bedside And bitterly she did weep. She wept, she moaned, she tore her hair, And she cried, “What shall I do?” So all that night I held her tight Just to keep off the foggy dew.	One night she come to my bedside, When I lay fast asleep. She laid her head down on my breast And she started in to weep. She wept, she sighed, she well near died, She cries, “What shall I do? For this night I'm resolved to stay with you Without of the foggy dew.”
Well all the first part of that night How we did sport and play, And all the latter part of that night Snug in my arms she lay. And when the broad daylight appeared She cried, “I am undone!” “Oh, hold your tongue, you silly young girl, For the foggy dew have gone.”	“Oh lie down there, you silly young girl, And wipe away those tears.” Then I hauled her shift up over her head, And I wrapped it round her ears. We were all right in the summertime And all through the winter, too. But I held her tight that livelong night To keep her from the foggy dew.
I never told nobody her name And damned be if I do, But many's the time I think of that night When I kept off the foggy dew.	“Oh lie down there, you silly young girl, And don't you be afraid. If you want to stay with me, You have to learn your trade.” She learned all through the summertime, And all through the winter, too. And truth to tell, she learned that well, She saved us from the foggy dew.
	One night I laid there, good as gold, When she starts unto me, Says, “I've got a pain in below my back, Where no pain ought to be. I was all right in the summertime, And all through the winter, too. But I take some ill or a kind of a chill, On account of the foggy dew.”
	That night she started to moan and cry. Says I, “What's up with you?" Says she, “I never should have been this way, If it haven't been for you.” I put my boots and my trousers on, And I ran for my neighbour, too. Do what we could, we couldn't do no good, And she died in the foggy dew.
	I'm a bachelor now, and I live with my son, And we work at the weaving trade. Each time I look in his eyes, I see The eyes of that fair young maid. Reminding me of the summertime, And of the winter, too. And of the many times I rolled in her arms All over the foggy dew.
Shirley Collins sings The Foggy Dew
I courted her all of the winter, Part of the summer too, All the harm that I have done Was to court a pretty fair maid. One night she came to my bedside As I lay fast asleep, “Come to my arms, my pretty miss, Get out of the foggy dew.” She layed in my arms till broad daylight, And the sun begin to shine. I turn my back on my own true love, “Goodbye, my love, I'm gone.” Towards the first part of the year She took pale in the face. And along the latter part of the year She grew bigger round the waist. Along towards the end of the year, She brought to me a son. “Oh, now you see as well as I What the foggy dew has done.” I loved that girl with all my heart, I loved her as my life. Yet every time the baby cries, I'd think on the foggy dew.

Acknowledgements

Both versions were transcribed by Reinhard Zierke. Martin Carthy's version was based on the text posted by Laura XX to the Mudcat Café but changed quite a bit to the actual singing of Martin Carthy. Thank you!