Bill the Bullocky

DESCRIPTION: "As I came down through Conroy's Gap I heard a maiden cry, 'There goes old Bill the Bullocky, He's bound for Gundagai!'" Bill is said to be very honest, but has a difficult time doing his work
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1964
KEYWORDS: Australia dog work travel hardtimes
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Manifold-PenguinAustralianSongbook, p. 139, "Bill the Bullocky" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Tritton-DukeOfTheOutback, p. 101, "Bill the Bullocky" (1 text)
Ward-PenguinBookOfAustralianBallads, p. 131, "Bullocky Bill" (1 text)
Stewart/Keesing-FavoriteAustralianBallads, p. 51, "Bullocky Bill" (1 text)
ADDITiONAL: A. K. MacDougall, _An Anthology of Classic Australian Lore_ (earlier published as _The Big Treasury of Australian Foiklore_), The Five Mile Press, 1990, 2002, pp. 308-309, "Bullocky bill" (1 text)
Roud #10221
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Nine Miles from Gundagai (The Dog Sat in the Tuckerbox)" (lyrics)
NOTES [75 words]: The version in Manifold is only two verses long, and one of them is largely derived from "Nine Miles from Gundagai" (with which Roud lumps it). Even the lines not derived from that song generally have parallels elsewhere. Stewart/Keesing-FavoriteAustralianBallads, p. 238, claims it was reconstructed from a lost original by a reporter named Tom Kinnane. I'm not sure this counts as an independent song. But I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: PASB139

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