Farmer's Ingle, The

DESCRIPTION: "Let Turks triumph and the poets live single But my delight's at the farmer's ingle [fireplace]." Merchants have trade, seamen have ships, the miser has money "but my delight's in the farmer's ingle." "Here's a bumper to the farmer's ingle"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (Greig/Duncan3)
KEYWORDS: home farming drink nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Greig/Duncan3 543, "The Farmer's Ingle" (2 texts)
Roud #6019
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.27(469), "The Farmer's Ingle" ("Let fools rejoice and monarchs reign"), unknown, no date
NOTES [235 words]: Greig/Duncan3 quotes a version from National Choir beginning "Let Whigs triumph, let tyrants rage."
Bumper: [noun] "a cup or glass filled to the brim or till the liquor runs over esp. in drinking a toast"; [verb] "to fill to the brim (as a wineglass) and empty by drinking," "to toast with a bumper," "to drink bumpers of wine or other alcoholic beverages" (source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 1976). - BS
The reference to the Turks triumphing is a curious one, since it seems to imply an almost impossibly early date. The Ottoman Turks did, of course, have amazing successes starting in the thirteenth century; in 1453 they captured Constantinople and in 1526 they won the Battle of Mohács, almost destroying the Kingdom of Hungary and opening doors for the attacks on Vienna. But the reign of Suleiman I "the Magnificent" (1520-1566), which included the Battle of Mohács and the sieges of Vienna, was the Ottoman high point. It would be some time before the Ottoman Empire became so weak that Napoleon would call it "the sick man of Europe," but by 1750 it was certainly no great threat to the west. The reference to the Whig triumph would also seem to imply a date either in the period 1688-1702 or 1714-1745. What are the odds of a song about the days of Turkish and Whiggish strength still being around to be printed in relatively recent time? - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: GrD3543

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