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Dido, Bendigo

[Trad. arr. Watersons]

This song is usually known as The Noble Foxhunting. The Watersons (Lal, Mike and Norma Waterson and John Harrison) sang it with the title Dido, Bendigo on their eponymous second album, The Watersons. Like all but one tracks from this LP, it was re-released in 1994 on the CD Early Days. It was also reissued in 2003 on The Definitive Collection and on the Topic 4CD sampler The Acoustic Folk Box. A live recording from 1990 at the Folk Festival Sidmouth was published in 2004.

A.L. Lloyd commented in the original album's sleeve notes:

A stirring old hunting song known all over England from Cumberland to Cornwall. George Townshend of Sussex sings a particularly fine version but the tune is more or less constant wherever it is found and, though the name of the sporting duke may vary, the list of hounds stays much the same. Country people must have loved to roll the grandiloquent syllables of names like Dido and Bendigo around their mouths.

Sabine Baring-Gould took the words and melody from a man named James Oliver and printed it in his Songs of the West under the title The Duke's Hunt. He says: “This is a mere cento from a long ballad, entitled The Fox Chase, narrating a hunt by Villiers, second duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Charles II. It is in the Roxburgh Collection and was printed by W. Oury, circa 1650.” The song has had a long life and still flourishes.

Compare to this the Kipper Family's version called Dido, Fido on their first album, Since Time Immoral.

Lyrics

As I was a-walking one morning last Autumn,
I've overheard some noble foxhunting
Between some noblemen and the Duke of Wellington
So early before the day was dawning.

Chorus (after each verse):

There was Dido, Bendigo, Gentry he was there-o;
Traveller he never looked behind him.
There was Countess, Rover, Bonnie Lass and Jover:
These were the hounds that could find him.

Well the first fox being young and his trials just beginning,
He's made straight away for his cover.
He's run up yon highest hill and gone down yon lowest gill,
Thinking that he'd find his freedom there forever.

Well the next fox being old and his trials fast a-dawning,
He's made straight away for the river.
Well the fox he has jumped in but an hound jumped after him:
It was Traveller who straited him forever.

Well they've run across the plain but they've soon returned again—
The fox nor the hounds never failing.
It's been just twelve months today since I heard the squire say:
“Hark forward then my brave hounds forever!”

Acknowledgements

Transcribed by Garry Gillard using a generic version at the Digital Tradition / Mudcat Café.