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> Steeleye Span > Songs > Hares on the Mountain
> Frankie Armstrong > Songs > Hares on the Mountain

Hares on the Mountain

[ Roud 329 ; Ballad Index ShH63 ; trad.]

Hares on the Mountain is one of the best known light-hearted love song from Southern England and was published by Cecil Sharp in his Folk Songs from Somerset. Shirley Collins recorded this song twice: in 1959 for her first LP Sweet England and in 1964 together with Davy Graham for their album Folk Roots, New Routes. Here she sings two introductory verses.

Hares on the Mountain was also recorded in 1973 by Steeleye Span for their album Parcel of Rogues and by Patterson Jordan Dipper (with a similar melody but quite different lyrics) on their album Flat Earth.

And Frankie Armstrong sang this in 1997 on her CD Till the Grass O'ergrew the Corn. She commented in the album sleeve notes:

It is widely accepted that this song is derived from the rare ballad The Two Magicians (Child #44), although the conceit is surely obvious enough to have been independently invented and all traces of magic (and story) have disappeared, leaving us with a genial day-dream of lyric. Robert Graves in his hugely influential (and more than a little dotty) book The White Goddess blithely informs us, on no real evidence at all, that The Two Magicians “is likely to have been the song sung at a dramatic performance of the chase at a witches' Sabbath”. He also remarks that before the triumph of patriarchy, it would have been the women in pursuit, so Frankie was pleased to come across a version in which they, rather than men, are doing the fantasising. Sharp noted it in 1904 from Mrs Lock of Muchelney Ham, in Somerset. Frankie has added a couple of standard verses to the existing three.

Lyrics

Shirley Collins sings Hares on the Mountain on Sweet England

If all you young men were hares on the mountain,
How many young girls would take guns and go hunting?
With a ri-fol-de-di, cal-ol-de-day, ri-fol-ai-de

If the young men could sing like blackbirds and thrushes,
How many young girls would go beating the bushes?
With a ri-fol-de-di, cal-ol-de-day, ri-fol-ai-de

If all you young men were rushes a-growing,
How many young girls would take scythes and go mowing?
With a ri-fol-de-di, cal-ol-de-day, ri-fol-ai-de

If all you young men were ducks in the water,
How many young girls would undress and dive after?
With a ri-fol-de-di, cal-ol-de-day, ri-fol-ai-de

But the young men are given to frisking and fooling,
I'll leave them alone and attend to my schooling
With a ri-fol-de-di, cal-ol-de-day, ri-fol-ai-de

Shirley Collins sings Hares on the Mountain on Folk Roots, New Routes

𝄆 Oh Sally, my dear, it's you I'd be kissing, 𝄇
She smiled and replied, you don't know what you're missing.

𝄆 Oh Sally, my dear, I wish I could wed you, 𝄇
She smiled and replied, then you'd say I'd misled you.

𝄆 If all you young men were hares on the mountain, 𝄇
How many young girls would take guns and go hunting?

𝄆 If the young men could sing like blackbirds and thrushes, 𝄇
How many young girls would go beating the bushes?

𝄆 If all you young men were fish in the water, 𝄇
How many young girls would undress and dive after?

But the young men are given to frisking and fooling,
Oh, the young men are given to frisking and fooling,
So I'll leave them alone and attend to my schooling

Steeleye Span sing Hares on the Mountain

𝄆 Young women, they run like hares on the mountain. 𝄇
And if I was a young man, I'd soon go a-hunting
With me right fol-de diddle de-ro right fol-de diddle-day

𝄆 Young women, they sing like birds in the bushes. 𝄇
If I was a young man I'd go beat them bushes
With me right fol-de diddle de-ro right fol-de diddle-day

𝄆 Young women, they swim like ducks in the water. 𝄇
If I was a young man I'd soon go swim after
With me right fol-de diddle de-ro right fol-de diddle-day

(Repeat first verse)

Frankie Armstrong sings Hares on the Mountain

If all those young men were rushes a-growin'
Then all those pretty maidens would get scythes, go mowing
Sing wack fol-de-dee fol-ol-de-day wack-fol-li-dee

If all those young men were hares on the mountain
Then all those pretty maidens would get guns, go hunting
Sing wack fol-de-dee fol-ol-de-day wack-fol-li-dee

If all those young men were duck in the water
Then all those pretty maidens would soon follow after
Sing wack fol-de-dee fol-ol-de-day wack-fol-li-dee

If all those young men were fish in the brooks-O
Then all those pretty maidens would be off with their hooks-O
Sing wack fol-de-dee fol-ol-de-day wack-fol-li-dee

If all those young men were blackbirds and thrushes
Then all those pretty maidens would soon beat the bushes
Sing wack fol-de-dee fol-ol-de-day wack-fol-li-dee
Sing wack fol-de-dee fol-ol-de-day wack-fol-li-dee

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Rosie Marshall for correcting some embarrassing typos.