Twelve Stone Two

DESCRIPTION: The singer is "dreadful nervous" because he is about to marry "an agricultural Irish girl that's twice the size of me": she weighs twelve stone two. He would like to break the contract but she would beat him. She did the courting and he had no choice.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1901 (O'Conor-OldTimeSongsAndBalladOfIreland); c.1885 (broadside, NLScotland L.C.Fol.70(48b))
KEYWORDS: courting wedding humorous nonballad shrewishness
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
O'Conor-OldTimeSongsAndBalladOfIreland, p. 79, "Twelve Stone Two" (1 text)
Roud #18290
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(48b), "Fine Big Woman" ("I feel so dreadful nervous That I'm frightened of my life"), Poet's Box (Dundee), c.1885
NOTES [39 words]: stone: "an official British unit equal to 14 pounds" (source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1976))
Broadside NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(48b): "Sung with great success by Walter Munro" - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: OCon079

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.