Wednesbury Cocking, The

DESCRIPTION: Stories of cockfighting at Wednesbury. The competition is fierce, and many are the addicts of the sport and of gambling on it. The song relates many incidents, concluding when "Jack Baker he whacked his own father, and thus ended Wednesbury Cocking"
AUTHOR: John Probin (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1957 (Graves, English and Scottish Ballads)
KEYWORDS: fight bird gambling sports chickens moniker
FOUND IN: Britain
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Grigson-PenguinBookOfBallads 85, "The Wednesbury Cocking" (1 text)
Hodgart-FaberBookOfBallads, p. 191, "The Wednesbury Cocking" (1 text)
Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime, p. 660, "The Wednesbury Cocking" (1 excerpt, filed under "The Hathersage Cocking," which does not appear to be traditional)
ADDITIONAL: Jon Raven, _The Urban and Industrial Songs of the Black Country and Birmingham_, Broadside, 1977, pp. 110-113, "The Wedgebury Cocking" (1 text, 1 tune, which may be separate but is similar enough in concept to file here)
Roy Palmer, "'Birmingham Broadsides and Oral Tradition" -- essay found in David Atkinson and Steve Roud, Editors, _Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America: The Interface between Print and Oral Tradition_, Ashgate, 2014, p. 47, "The Wednesbury Cocking" (1 tune with partial tex)
ST PBB085 (Partial)
Roud #23391
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.19(37) view 1, "Wednesbury Cooking" (sic.), unknown, n.d.; also 2806 c.17(458), "Wednesbury Cocking"; 2806 c.17(459); Douce 3(109)=Harding B 39(43)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Cock-Fight" (theme)
SAME TUNE:
Bloxwich Wake Bull Baiting (Jon Raven, _The Urban and Industrial Songs of the Black Country and Birmingham_, Broadside, 1977, pp 204-205)
NOTES [162 words]: The curious comment, "I'll pay thee as Paul paid the Ephesians," is hard to understand in context. Ephesus was one of Paul's favorite cities. The reference may be to Acts 19:23-41, where Paul's preaching in Ephesus caused certain locals to turn away from the cult of Artemis (a major source of income in the city). The result was a riot.
The Grigson-PenguinBookOfBallads version of this is metrically strange; it does not appear possible to sing all the verses to the same tune. Cleaned up, perhaps?
According to Roy Palmer, "'Birmingham Broadsides and Oral Tradition" -- essay found in David Atkinson and Steve Roud, Editors, Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America: The Interface between Print and Oral Tradition, Ashgate, 2014, p. 45, this was written by "John Probin, a Birmingham gun-maker, who witnessed cockfights during a trip to the Black Country to purchase gun-locks. Probin was in business from 1770 until at least 1808." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: PBB085

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