Flowery Nolan

DESCRIPTION: At seventy one, Flowery Nolan, "a terror to all men," decides to marry. He marries the only acceptable candidate. When he tells his wife they would not sleep together -- "you are only but my serving maid" -- she goes home to her father's house.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1985 (IRTravellers01)
KEYWORDS: age marriage sex rejection husband wife
FOUND IN: Ireland
Roud #16693
RECORDINGS:
Mikeen McCarthy, "Flowery Nolan" (on IRTravellers01)
NOTES [115 words]: Jim Carroll's notes to IRTravellers01: "Arranged or 'made' marriages were very much an accepted part of rural life in Ireland up to comparatively recent times... Women from poor house-holds which were unable to support the whole family would readily marry older farmers looking for a housekeeper, or maybe widowers with young children to care for."
IRTravellers01: Mikeen McCarthy tells, on the record, that Flowery Nolan was an old bachelor who only talked about getting married until he was 71. Then he advertised for a wife and the song tells how it went. The moral: "Never marry an old man Till you're fed up of your life, Or then you'll be coming home again Like Flowery Nolan's wife." - BS
File: RcFlowNo

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