Maidens of Sixty-Three (The Old Maid)

DESCRIPTION: "When I was a girl of eighteen years old... I was taught to expect wit, wisdom, gold, and nothing less would do for me." She rejected a youth as too poor, a duke as too old, etc. By her forties, the suitors were fewer; at (63), she begs for anyone
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1870 (Bryants-Put-Me-In-My-Little-Bed-Songster)
KEYWORDS: courting oldmaid rejection
FOUND IN: Ireland Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #17, p. 1, ("When I was a maiden of sweet seventeen") (1 text)
Greig/Duncan7 1377, "The Old Maid of Fifty-Three" (3 texts)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H679, pp. 255-256, "Maidens of Sixty-Three" (1 text, 1 tune)
Bryants-Put-Me-In-My-Little-Bed-Songster, p. 18, "The Old Maid" (1 text)
DT, OLDMD53*
Roud #5643
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "When I Was a Girl of Eighteen" (tune, according to Bryants-Put-Me-In-My-Little-Bed-Songster)
NOTES [53 words]: Sort of a combination of "My Thing Is My Own" with "The Old Maid's Song."
There is sheet music for this published by C. Bradlee of Boston in the Connecticut College collection, and the Library of Congress has a copy published by George Willig of Philadelphia, but neither lists either an author nor a copyright date. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: HHH679

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