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Poor Old Horse
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The Albion Band: Poor Old Horse
Poor Old Horse
1. Ceremonial Song
[
Roud 513
; Ballad Index ShH85
; trad. arr. Shirley Collins]
This ceremonial song is from Cecil Sharp's Folk Song for England. Shirley Collins recorded a two-verse fragment of it in her two-day session in London in 1958 for her 1960 LP False True Lovers. She and Alan Lomax commented in the sleeve notes:
[This] is a landlubber relative of the familiar sea shanty:
Say, old man, your horse will die,
And I say so and I hope so,
And if he dies I'll sell his skin,
Poor old horse.There can be no doubt that the land-variant, which Sharp found as a part of the hobby-horse drama in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, is older by far. The hobby horse, an important actor in British springtime ceremonies, is a fantastic and sometimes terrifying mask which covers the entire body of the dancer. The horse-dancer goes the round of the community, often on May Day, alternately dying and being revived by his companions, symbolising the death of the old year, and of the fertility of the earth. These spring-time antics of the hobby-horse, which still amuse tourists in certain remote districts of western England, are a genuine survival of ancient pagan fertility rites. That a horse-mask dances in Britain on May Day is one more evidence of the importance of the horse-cult, widespread in all Europe thousands of years ago. Therefore, this charming little comic fragment, which Sharp had taught to all the school children in Britain, is a gentle breath of a pagan fertility rite that once upon a time was a compound of magic, religion, comedy and sex.
John Kirkpatrick and chumps recorded a much longer version for their CD Wassail! A Traditional Celebration of an English Midwinter. He commented in his sleeve notes:
This song was originally attached to a Christmas play - The Old Horse Play - that was reasonably widespread at the turn of the century in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and has still not entirely died out. Ceremonial performances of the song, with a horse's skull suitably decorated, can be found to this day in North Yorkshire. In the last verse the singer holding the skull kneels down to symbolise the death of the horse. As with the wren, we take the horse's strength to keep us going through the coming year.
The song was taken up and widely distributed by broadside printers, so that it has been found all over the country even where the accompanying play is quite unknown. This is a jumble of some of the many variants.
Martin Carthy used three Poor Old Horse verses for the song Old Horse on his album Out of the Cut.
2. Sea Shanty
[
Roud 513
; Ballad Index Doe014
; trad. arr. The Albion Band]
The shanty variant of this song was sung by Ian Campbell on the album Farewell Nancy: Sea Songs and Shanties; it was later included in the compilation CD Sailors' Songs & Sea Shanties. A.L. Lloyd commented in the sleeve notes:
Till recently, at midwinter young men went round English villages with one of the gang disguised as a ram or a horse, which was put to death and resurrected in pantomime. They'd dance, sing and collect beer-money. One of these songs accompanying this ritual was Poor Old Horse. Taken aboard ship it kept its ceremonial purpose. At the end of the first month at sea, when the seamen's wages fell due, a stuffed horse was ritually dumped overboard to the accompaniment of the song. The ceremony fell into disuse but the song lingered on as a shanty. The tune is a variant of Tom's Gone to Hilo.
John Tams sang a much longer version of this shanty on an Albion Band single and on their LP Rise Up Like the Sun. Martin Carthy, Julie Covington, Pat Donaldson, Andy Fairweather-Low, Kate McGarrigle and Richard and Linda Thompson sang backing vocals. The album's sleeve notes said:
John Tams has described this song as an attempt to push the traditional sea shanty towards a country blues style: “The tradition is incredibly strong and forgiving. You don't need to tiptoe around songs in a scholarly way, you can wrest what you want from the tradition and watch it spring back.” The traditional song is here an exciting marriage of atypical blues lines and chanted “work” rhythms applied to a chord progression developed from the James Taylor song, Wandering. Released as a single, Poor Old Horse achieves the distinction of being selected as “Record of the Week” by disk jockey Simon Bates.
A BBC live recording from May 31, 1977 was released on the Albion Band's CD The BBC Sessions. Of course this hasn't such a wealth of guest backing vocalists but otherwise the line up is nearly identical.
The two CDs Songs from the Shows have two recordings of this song: one from the 1981 Radio Trent recording of the show Albion River Hymn is sung by June Tabor, the other one from the 1984-85 show An Easter Garland has the title Poor Old Man. Both songs have their title line as refrain.
Lyrics
Shirley Collins' ceremonial fragment
My clothing was once of a linsey-woolsey fine,
My mane it was sleek and my body it did shine.
But now I'm getting old and I'm going to decay,
Me master frowns upon me and thus they all do say,
“Poor old horse.”
My living was once to the best of corn and hay
As ever grew in England, and that they all did say.
But now there's no such comfort as I can find at all.
I'm forced to nab the short grass that grows against the wall,
“Poor old horse.”
John Kirkpatrick's ceremonial version
Oh, it's a poor old horse that's come knocking at your door,
And if you please to let me in I'll serve you well, I'm sure;
But me legs are late so low from running so many a mile,
Over hedges, over ditches, over gates and over stiles,
Poor old horse.
Once I was a young horse and in me youthful pride,
Me mane hung over me shoulder and me body did brightly shine.
But now I've grown so old, me natures does decay,
Me master he looks down on me and this I've heard him say,
Poor old horse.
Once all my feeding was the best of corn and hay
That e'er grew in the corn fields or in the meadows gay;
But now I've grown so old and scarcely can I crawl,
I'm forced to snap at the shortest grass that grows along the wall,
Poor old horse.
Once all in in the stable I was kept so fine and warm,
To keep my limbs from aching and to keep me free from harm;
But now I've grown so old, to the fields I have to go,
Let it hail or rain or sunshine, let the wind blow high or low,
Poor old horse.
Oh you've eaten all my hay and you spoiled all my straw,
You're neither fit to ride upon nor neither fit to draw,
You are old, you are cold, you are lazy, dull and slow,
So he'll hang him, whip him, stick him, to the hounds will let him go,
Poor old horse.
Oh, my hooves are now so hollow that were once so smooth and hard,
And my legs were scarcely carrying me bones into the nearest yard;
And my hide to the huntsman so freely will I give,
And my body for the hounds for I'll rather die than live,
Poor old horse, poor old horse,
Poor old horse, let him die!
| Rise Up Like the Sun / BBC Sessions shanty | Ian Campbell's shanty |
|---|---|
|
They say, old man, your horse will die. And if he dies then we'll tan his hide. And if he lives then we'll ride again. And it's after years of much abuse. He's as dead as a nail in the lamp-room floor. [Rise:]
And he won't bother us no more. [BBC:]
And you won't see his like no more. And it's Sally's in the garden and she's pickin' peas. And it's Sally's in the kitchen and she's bakin' the dough. And it's down the long and the winding road. It's mahogany beef and the weevily bread. And I thought I heard the old man say. Just one more pull and that will do. |
I say, old man, your horse is dead. One month of rotten life we've led. But now the month is up all turn. Get up, you swine, and look for graft. An' yanks ye aft to the cabin door. |
Acknowledgements
Transcribed by Reinhard Zierke with help from Richard Miller. Thank you!