Quare Bungo Rye

DESCRIPTION: Sailor Jack meets a girl, who offers to sell him "old bungo rye." Jack thinks it a whiskey, and buys her basket. In it he finds a child. Jack declares the child to be "quare bungo rye," and has the child christened with that name
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1869 (Logan-APedlarsPack)
KEYWORDS: sailor drink children baby trick clergy
FOUND IN: Britain Ireland Canada(Mar,Newf) Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US(NE)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "BUNG YOUR EYE"
Logan-APedlarsPack, pp. 416-421, "Bung Your Eye" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan2 305, "Bung Your Eye" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H700, pp. 277-278, "Mind Your Eye" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 895-896, "Young Bung-'er-eye" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-SongsAndBalladsFromNovaScotia 39, "Jack the Sailor" (1 fragment, probably this though the chorus has swapped off somewhere, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 211-212, "Blow the Man Down" (1 text, version "F" of "Blow the Man Down" sung to the tune of "Lowlands Low") [AbEd, pp. 166-167]
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, pp. 160-161, "Bung Yer Eye" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, QUARERYE*
ST Log416 (Full)
Roud #2404
RECORDINGS:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, "Bungle Rye" (on IRClancyMakem02)
Jacob Noseworthy, "Bung Your Eyes" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
Anthony Power, "Bungle Rye" (on ITMA/CapeShoreNL)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Basket of Eggs" (plot and baby in basket motif) and references there
cf. "The Child in the Budget" (baby in basket motif)
cf. "The Oyster Girl" [Laws Q13] (mysterious--read female--"box" motif)
cf. "Bung Yer Eye" (chorus lyrics)
cf. "The Charming Young Widow I Met on the Train" (theme of the female leaving a baby)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Queer Bungo Rye
Quare Bungle Rye
The Exciseman
Bangeria
NOTES [183 words]: Re: the mysterious box motif. The Lesley Nelson-Burns site Folk Music of England Scotland Ireland, Wales & America collection includes a page by John Renfro Davis with text for this ballad as "Quare Bungle Rye" and a note that "This is a variant of The Oyster Girl." The note goes on to cite a Bodleian broadside for The Oyster Girl. It also cites as "variants and alternate titles" The Basket of Oysters, Bungerye, Queer Bungle Rye, Quare Bungo Rye, Young Bung-'er'Eye, The Basket of Eggs, and Eggs in Her Basket.
The Oyster Maid/Basket of Eggs connection similarities are based on the motif of a sailor being fooled by a woman into taking something hidden in a basket which, in some versions, turns out to be a baby. While the parallels -- including the sexual symbolisms -- are obvious, these should be treated as three different ballads because of the differences in the punch lines.
The motif of the "box" with *censored* contents that cannot just be thrown away is even closer to the 1950 Phil Harris hit "The Thing" written by Charles R. Grean and set to the tune of "The Chandler's Wife." - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: Log416

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