Sheelicks

DESCRIPTION: About a riotous wedding, attended by all whether invited or not, at McGinty's. A tailor with a wooden leg loses it in mid-dance; a cyclist is carried home in a wheelbarrow; a man comes with a hundred pounds, goes home with nothing. Plus the food is bad.
AUTHOR: George Bruce Thomson
EARLIEST DATE: 1908 (Greig/Duncan3)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer tells of a riotous wedding, attended by all whether invited or not, at McGinty's Meal and Ale. Mrs. McGinty trips over a pig; a tailor with a wooden leg loses it in mid-dance; a bicyclist is carried home in a wheelbarrow; another man comes with a hundred pounds, goes home with nothing. The food is bad, besides. Chorus: "Hi, hi, went the drum! Diddle, diddle, went the fiddle/.../And the jing-a-ring went roond aboot like sheelicks in a riddle"
KEYWORDS: disability wedding dancing drink food party humorous animal
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast 134, pp. 2-3, "Sheelicks" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan3 614, "Sheelicks" (1 text, 1 tune)
MacColl/Seeger-TravellersSongsFromEnglandAndScotland 109, "Sheelicks" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, MEALNAL2*
Roud #2518
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Blythesome Bridal" (theme) and references there
cf. "The Deil Amon' the Tailors" (tune, per Greig)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
McGinty's Wedding
NOTES [61 words]: [MacColl & Seeger's] informant, Maggie McPhee, has evidently transplanted bits of another Thompson piece, "McGinty's Meal and Ale", into "Sheelicks." His compositions evidently entered tradition around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, as Greig collected them from informants over a wide area. "Sheelicks", by the way, are husked grain; a riddle is a sieve. - PJS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: McCST109

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