Crockery Ware

DESCRIPTION: A merchant wants to lay with a girl one night. She puts dishes on a chair near her bed. In the dark he breaks the dishes and chair and wakes her mother. She calls the police and he has to pay for the crockery ware and broken chair.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1886 (Long)
KEYWORDS: sex trick bawdy humorous mother rake nightvisit courting lover police
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South)) Canada(Mar,Newf,Ont) US(MW)
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "CROCKERY WARE, THE"
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Mi 679, "Pretty Polly and Her Crockery Ware" (1 text)
Palmer-EnglishCountrySongbook, #66, "The Crockery Ware" (1 text, 1 tune)
Purslow-MarrowBones, p. 19, "The Crockery Ware" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 257-258, "Crockery Ware" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast 119, "Old Woman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ives-DriveDullCareAway-PrinceEdwardIsland, pp. 129-130,243-244, "The Crockery Ware" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario 11, "A Young Man Lived in Belfast Town" (1 text, 1 tune)
Vikár/Panagapka-SongsNorthWoodsSungByOJAbbott 9, "A Young Man Lived in Belfast Town" (1 text, 1 tune)
Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection, pp. 138-139, "Crockery Ware" (1 text)
DT, CROCKWAR CROCKRY*
ADDITIONAL: William Henry Long, _A DIctionary of the Isle of WIght Dialiect, And of Provincialisms used in the Island_ (Reeves & Turner, London, 1886), pp. 163-164, "The Crockery Ware" (1 text)
Roud #1490
RECORDINGS:
O. J. Abbott, "A Young Man Lived in Belfast Town" (on Abbott1)
Everett Bennett, "Crockery Ware" (on PeacockCDROM)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 28(37), "Crockery Ware," unknown, n.d.
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Frolicksome Farmer" (theme: the hazards of sex in the dark)
NOTES [161 words]: At least one source claims that the Crockery Ware wasn't just random pottery but the chamber pot. Not sure I believe it; that sounds awfully messy.
Thanks to Jim Dixon for pointing out the Long copy.
Incidentally, although it almost certainly isn't related, something a bit like this actually happened, and to family friends of Charles Darwin, no less. Darwin spent much time at Woodhouse, the home of William Owen. According to Cyril Aydon, A Brief Guide to Charles Darwin: His Life and Times, 2002 (I use th 2008 Running Press edition), pp. 25-26: "On one occasion the peppery Squire OWen, exasperated by comings and goings in the small hours, placed a pile of crockery at the top of the stairs in hope of catching whoever was disturbing his sleep. Getting up in the night, he forgot his own trap, sending the crockery flying and waking the household, which drove his wife into such a fit of uncontrollable laughter that he threatened to kick her out of bed."- RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: Pea257

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