Stringybark and Greenhide

DESCRIPTION: "I sing of a commodity, it's one that will not fail yer,.. the mainstay of Australia... Stringybark and greenhide can beat [gold] all to pieces." Greenhide can hold carts together; stringybark strengthens homes; the singer praises these useful products
AUTHOR: George Loyau (?) (source: Stewart/Keesing-FavoriteAustralianBallads)
EARLIEST DATE: probably before 1870 (Sydney Songster)
KEYWORDS: nonballad Australia
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Anderson-StoryOfAustralianFolksong, pp. 170-172, "Stringybark and Greenhide" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal-OldBushSongs-CentenaryEdition, pp. 157-159, "Stringybark and Greenhide" (1 text plus a fragment)
Ward-PenguinBookOfAustralianBallads, pp. 71-72, "Stringy-bark and Green-hide" (1 text)
Stewart/Keesing-FavoriteAustralianBallads, pp. 71-72, "Stringybark and Greenhide" (1 text)
Roud #8400
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. 'Stringybark" (subject)
NOTES [194 words]: Learmonth, p. 511, describes stringybark as an informal name for several species of eucalyptus, the name being given because the bark "peels off in long fibrous strips." Morris, pp. 442-443, gives multiple meanings. The first, dating back to at least 1845, is close to Learmonth's: "any one of various Gums with a tough fibrous bark used for tying, for cordage, for roofs of huts, etc." The second sense is "bush slang for bad whisky." The third is simply an equivalent for "bush" in all its senses, i.e. that which is away from civilization.
Ramson, p. 643, "Any of many trees, chiefly of s.e. mainland Aust., of the genus Eucapyptus (fam. Myrtaceae) having a characteristically thick, rough, persistent, long-fibred bark; the barak of the tree. Also with distinguishing epithet, as red, swamp, white, yellow." The first citation is from 1799. But there is a secondary meaning: "Used allusively as an emblem of the unsophisticated, the remote, and the rustic."
Allthough the song presents itself as a praise of stringybark and greenhide, Patterson/Fahey/Seal see it more as a toast to the abilities of Australians to improvise, and I incline to agree. - RBW
Bibliography

Learmonth: Andrew and Nancy Learmonth, Encyclopedia of Australia, 2nd edition, Warne & Co, 1973
Morris: Edward E. Morris, A Dictionary of Austral English, 1898 (I use the 1972 Sydney University Press with a new foreword but no new content)
Ramson: W. S. Ramson, editor, The Australian National Dictionary: A Dictionary of Autralianisms on Historical Principles, Oxford University Press (Melbourne), 1988

Last updated in version 5.2
File: PFS157

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