My Father Died a Month Ago

DESCRIPTION: "My father died a month ago And left me all his riches." The "riches" are listed: feather bed, wooden leg, leather breeches, teapot without a spout, cup with no handle, tobacco pipe with no lid.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1894 (Notes and Queries)
KEYWORDS: death humorous nonballad lastwill
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North,West),Wales)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 155, "My father died a month ago" (2 texts)
ADDITIONAL: Notes and Queries (London, February 17, 1894) ("Digitized by Google"), Vol. V, No. 112, p. 126, ("My father died when I was young") (1 text)
Notes and Queries (London, March 17, 1894) ("Digitized by Google"), Vol. V, No. 116, p. 217, ("My father died when I was young") (4 texts)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Grandfather Bryan" (theme)
cf. "The Swapping Boy" (theme)
NOTES [192 words]: Notes and Queries, February 17, 1894 is reported from Bradford, Yorkshire: "[when] I was quite a youngster ... it was common enough with us in our district."
Notes and Queries, March 17, 1894: "My father died when I was young, And left me all his riches: His gun and volunteering-cap, Long sword and leather breeches.... I have been told that the 'volunteering-cap' form of the ditty is supposed to relate to the American War of Independence" [quoted in Mrs Gutch and Mabel Peacock, County Folk-Lore (London, 1908), Vol. V, p. 393].
Notes and Queries, March 17, 1894 versions include one from Glamorganshire, Wales, and one "current in Leicestershire" which has a "'bacco-box" - rather than a "tobacco-pipe" - "without a lid."
See DT, CNTRYFSH, "Country Fashions," for a song that begins like "My Father Died a Month Ago": the first verse ends "... a horse both lame and blind sir; You'd swear he'd in a trap been catch'd, he wur cropped so close behind sir." The following verses are neither like "My Father Died a Month Ago" nor "Grandfather Bryan." The singer mounts the horse and the song recounts his misadventures until his unhappy marriage. - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: OpOc155

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