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Raggle Taggle Gipsies

[Child 200; trad. arr. Waterson:Carthy]

Sung by Waterson:Carthy with Eliza Carthy leading on their third album Broken Ground and on the Topic sampler The Folk Awards 2001. A variant of this, Seven Yellow Gypsies, was recorded by Martin Carthy for his 1969 album Prince Heathen and by Mike Waterson for his 1977 album Mike Waterson; the latter is available on the CD re-release of the Watersons' For Pence and Spicy Ale too.

Martin Carthy commented in the original album's sleeve notes:

The Raggle Taggle Gipsies is about as old an idea as gipsies in these islands are themselves. The story is supposed to be about the Countess of Cassilis who ran away with some gipsies who were hanged for their trouble. Hanging was, of course, par for the course for gipsies at the time—sometimes just for being gipsies—indeed I sometimes thank that some people nowadays yearn for such a time, gipsies being the most reviled (and legislated against) portion of our population. Within Norma's and my lifetime there have been two occasions when her descendant, the Countess, has been confidently reported in the paper as having run away with someone or other. Thirty year ago or more one of the Sunday papers splashed that she had run away with (I think) gipsies, and within the last seven or eight year she was said with equal certainty to have run away this time with a travelling salesman. One wonders what the Count had been putting in her caviar or, on the other hand whether the whole thing feeds on and propagates itself as an ongoing myth. (What did they call an urban myth in the 16th century?) This way of doing the song was given by the beautiful Norfolk singer Walter Pardon to Mike Yates in the 1970s.

Lyrics

Three gipsies come round to my door
And downstairs ran my lady o
And one sang high and one sang low
And one sang bonny bonny Biscay o

Then she took off her silken gown
And dressed in hose of leather o
The dirty rags around my door
She's gone with the raggle taggle gipsies o

Twas late at night my lord returned
Enquiring for his lady o
The servants one and all replied
She's gone with the raggle taggle gipsies o

Go harness up my milk white steed
Go fetch to me my bonny o
And I will ride and seek my bride
Who's gone with the raggle taggle gipsies o

So he rode high and he rode low
He rode through woods and copses too
Until he came to a wide open field
Where he has spied his lady o

Why did you leave your new wedded lord
And your house and lands and money o
To go and seek a roving life
Along with the raggle taggle gipsies o

What care I for my new wedded lord
And my house and lands and money o
Tonight I'll seek a roving life
Along with the raggle taggle gipsies o

Last night she slept in a goose feather bed
With the sheets turned down so bravely o
Tonight she'll lie in the cold open field
In the arms of the raggle taggle gipsies o

What care I for a goose feather bed
With the sheets turned down so bravely o
Tonight I'll lie in the cold open field
In the arms of the raggle taggle gipsies o

Acknowledgements

Garry Gillard heartily thanks Steve Willis for corrections.