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The Wanton Wife of Castlegate

[trad. arr. Watersons]

Mike Waterson sang The Wanton Wife of Castlegate in 1966 on the Watersons' album A Yorkshire Garland. Like most of the tracks from this LP, it was re-released in 1994 on the CD Early Days.

A.L. Lloyd said in the A Yorkshire Garland sleeve notes:

A saucy song, this one, originating in York probably in the early years of the seventeenth century, and published as a broadside by the London printers Milbourn and Thackeray in the 1670s. In the course of time, as commonly happens, generations of singers trimmed off many inessentials and improved the song while slightly roughening it. The come-all-ye style tune probably got attached early in the nineteenth century. It's of a kind hardly known before on this side of the Irish Channel.

Mike's niece Eliza Carthy sang The Wanton Wife of Castlegate in 1995 on her and Nancy Kerr's second album, Shape of Scrape too, followed by the tune Princess Royal. She commented in the record's sleeve notes:

The Wanton Wife of Castlegate is a squib that Mike Waterson put together and used to sing with The Watersons. Ta Uncle Mike. Princess Royal is a Cotswold Morris tune I know from a lifetime of visiting Bampton-in-the-Bush at Whitsuntide, but don't try to dance to it because you'll break your knees!

Lyrics

Mike Waterson sings The Wanton Wife of Castlegate

Oh there was a wife in Castlegate but I won't tell of her name
For she is both brisk and buxom and she likes a fumbling game
She can nip and she can trip, me boys, as she runs over the plain
Till she meets with the jolly boating man and she's off with him again

Well he says, me Molly Orney, and could you fancy me?
Come on up to my ship's cabin and contented we will be
For I have got gold and silver and of you I will take care
And a whopping great pair of horns, me gal, your husband he shall wear

For your husband, he's a silly old fool and blind as blind can be
And so to wear the horns, me gal, contented he must be
He can wriggle them at his leisure, he can do the best he can
While his wife, she takes her pleasure with the jolly boating man

Well at Pomfret clock and tower, me gal, we've silver in great store
And I wish that I could find it, for then we'd have us a roar
For we'd supper, wine and whisky, keep the beer and ale in store
Here's to you me lads and lasses and to tipplers evermore!

Eliza Carthy sings The Wanton Wife of Castlegate

Oh there was a wife in Castlegate but I won't tell of her name
She is both brisk and buxom and she likes a tumbling game
She can nip and she can trip, me boys, as she rides over the plain
Till she meets with the jolly boating man and she's off with him again

Well he says, me Molly Morney, and could you fancy me?
Come on up to my ship's cabin and contented we will be
For I have got gold and silver and of you I will take care
But a whopping great pair of horns, me gal, your husband he will wear

For your husband, he's a silly old fool and blind as blind can be
And so to wear the horns, my love, contented he must be
He can wriggle them at his leisure, he can do the best he can
While his wife takes her pleasure with the jolly boating man

Well at Pomfret clock and tower, my girl, we've silver in great store
And I wish that we could go there, 'cause there we'd have us a roar
We'd sup on wine and whisky, keep the beer and ale in store
Here's to you me lads and lasses and great tipplers evermore!

Acknowledgements

Transcribed from the singing of Mike Waterson and Eliza Carthy by Garry Gillard