> Mike Waterson / Waterson:Carthy > Songs > The Light Dragoon

The Light Dragoon / The Trooper and the Maid

[ Roud 162 ; Child 299 ; Ballad Index C299 ; trad.]

Mike Waterson sang The Light Dragoon in 1977 on his eponymous album Mike Waterson with his niece Maria, his sisters Lal and Norma Waterson, Jim Eldon and Rod Stradling singing chorus. A.L. Lloyd commented in the original album's notes:

A number of songs about sporting soldiers and saucy girls—The Trooper and the Maid, Seventeen Come Sunday, Pretty Peggy, The Bold Dragoon—run so close to each other as to be well nigh inseparable. In this one, the lady cheerfully takes the initiative in the seduction, a fact that worried some of the pioneer folksong collectors. The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, who came across two or three of the set in Devon, rewrote it so that the dragoon was the seducer, saying: “The original is too coarse for reproduction.” Mike Waterson's version is based on the one sung by Harry List of Framlingham, Suffolk, and recorded in Songs of Seduction (The Folk Songs of Britain Vol. 2, Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968).

Mike Waterson also sang it live eight years earlier, at Folk Union One in 1969 (the Watersons' former own folk club held at the Bluebell), which was recorded for the privately pressed LP Bluebell Folk Sing. The liner notes said that this was a song from the Watersons' repertoire.

The Watersons sang The Light Dragoon live at Folkfestival '76 Dranouter too; this track was included in 2004 on the Watersons' 4CD anthology Mighty River of Song. The Light Dragoon is also on the first Waterson:Carthy CD, as sung by Eliza Carthy with Nancy Kerr playing fiddle; this track was reissued in 2003 on Eliza's anthology The Definitive Collection. Martin Carthy commented in the Waterson:Carthy sleeve notes:

Eliza got The Light Dragoon from a record of her Uncle Mike (Waterson), asking him later if it was OK and he was happy enough to give some more songs. The song itself is one of a batch where the woman is the happy seducer, a fact which so bothered some early collectors that they refused to publish it as it was—saying it was “far too coarse”—and only did so having edited it severely and made the dragoon the prime mover. It's from Suffolk.

And is was done by Eliza Carthy and Nancy Kerr on the CD Live at Fairbridge Festival, 1995, though it's not on either of their other recordings.

Jon Boden sang The Light Dragoon as the September 2, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Lyrics

Mike Waterson sings The Light Dragoon on Mike Waterson

The light dragoon come over the hill
When the moon was shining clearly
Well, there was a little lady and she knew him by his horse
Because she loves him dearly

Chorus:

Dearly so dearly
There was a little lady and she knew him by his horse
Because she loves him dearly

Well, she grabbed him by the nearside rein
Taken him to the stable
There is hay and corn for your horse, young man
He can eat now he is able

Able so able &c.

She taken him by the lily-white hand
Led him to the table
There is cakes and wine for you, my dear
You can drink now you are able

Able so able &c.

She took the bottle into her hand
Poured out the wine so clearly
Here's a health to yours and to mine, she says
You're welcome home, me deary

Deary so deary &c.

Then she run upstairs for to make his bed
Make it soft and comfy
How nimble she jumped into the bed
For to see if it was easy

Easy so easy &c.

The light dragoon he ran upstairs
Put his trousers on the table
How nimble he jumped into the bed
To do what he was able

Able so able &c.

Well, they laid in bed and the clock struck one
Trumpets they was a-sounding
Well, her spirits they was high but her belly it was low
And she ran home to her mammy

Mammy her mammy &c.

It's where ha' you been all this live-a-long night?
Enquired her anxious parents
I've been along with the light dragoon
Because I loves him dearly

Dearly so dearly &c.

The Watersons sing The Light Dragoon on Folkfestival '76 Dranouter

A light dragoon came over the hill
When the moon was shining clearly
Well there was a little lady and she knew him by his horse
Because she loves him dearly

Chorus:

Dearly, oh dearly
Well there was a little lady and she knew him by his horse
Because she loves him dearly

She's grabbed him by the nearside rein
She has taken him to the stable
Here is hay and corn for your horse, young man
He can eat now he is able

And she taken him by the lily-white hand
Led him to the table
Here is cakes and wine for you, my dear
To drink now you are able

She took the bottle into her hand
Poured out the wine so clearly
Here's an health to yours and to mine, she says
And you're welcome home, my dearie

And she ran upstairs for to make his bed
Make it soft and comfy
How nimble she jumped into the bed
For to see if it was easy

But the light dragoon he ran upstairs
Put his trousers on the table
How nimble he jumped into the bed
For to do what he was able

They laid in bed and the clock struck one
Trumpets they was a-sounding
Her spirits they were high and her belly it was low
And she ran home to her mammy

Oh where've you been all this live-long night
Enquired her anxious parents
I've been along with the light dragoon
Because I loves him dearly

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Greer Gilman for the Mike Waterson transcription and to Susanne Kalweit for the Folkfestival '76 Dranouter transcription.