I'll Tell Ye a Talie

DESCRIPTION: A tale about the colt and fillie? The singer goes to Ireland and sees a maiden chasing a cock that had stolen her comb. She [?] asks "Blue-breekies" whether he had seen her husband. Yes: he burnt a hole in his breeches, and what's that to you?
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (Greig/Duncan8)
KEYWORDS: travel hair Ireland humorous chickens horse clothes
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Greig/Duncan8 1635, "I'll Tell Ye a Talie" (1 text)
Roud #13067
NOTES [164 words]: I have no idea what's going on here. That may be what the singer intends. "Blue-breekies" may refer to a [police?] uniform.
Roud and the notes to Greig/Duncan8 look to Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1870 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 27, ("There was a wee yowe") for a [closely?] related texts. The story lines, as far as I can tell, cross in a few places: the trip to Ireland, the burn, and mention of the "guidman." Here's what I think the Chambers text is about: A ewe looks at the moon and sees more wonders [?] than fifteen; it goes to Ireland and Aberdeen and returns home; the husband is herding, the pigs are inside, the wife supervising the girls making cheese; the cat is in the stall eating when a cinder burnt its nose and it cries "yeowe, yeowe, yeowe." - BS
Based just on the description, it sounds like a hidden-meaning tale of a man seducing a virgin, ans of her following him to try to get him to marry her. But why, then, the humor? - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD1635

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