Silly Old Man

DESCRIPTION: "Here's a silly ould man that lies all alone He wants a wife, and he can get none." He chooses. "Now, young couple, you're married together ... must obey father and mother ... love one another ... kiss together"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1830 (Carleton)
KEYWORDS: courting floatingverses playparty
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North)) Ireland
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 40, "Silly Old Man" (5 texts)
ADDITIONAL: William Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (London, 1896 (reprint of 1830 Dublin edition ("Digitized by Google"))), p. 151, "The Silly Ould Man" (1 text)
Katharine (Tynan) Hinkson, "The Girls' Room" in Christabel R. Coleridge and Arthur Innes, editors, The Monthly Packet (London, 1897 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. XCIII, pp. 345, "The Old Fishwife" ("Here's an old Fishwife left all alone")
G.F. Northall, English Folk-Rhymes (London, 1892 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 378-379, ("Silly old man he walks alone") (1 text)
Roud #13181
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Nuts in May" (tune, per Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)
cf. "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" (tune) and references there
cf. "King William was King James's Son" (some lines)
cf. "Little Sally Walker" (some lines)
NOTES [97 words]: Among the "Silly Old Man" Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame texts are four that begin "One poor widow left all alone," "Here's a poor widow, she's left alone," "Two old bachelors left alone" and "Three old bachelors all in a row." The rest of each text follows the description above. The shared text includes something like "Choose to the east, and choose to the west, Choose the one that you love best"; Chamberlain starts with that text, with no one being alone; one problem is that it shares that text and the ending with "King William was King James's Son" and "Little Sally Walker." - BS
Last updated in version 6.3
File: OpGa040

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