Old Man at the Mill, The

DESCRIPTION: "Same old man, sitting at the mill/Mill turns around of its own free will...ladies go forward and the gents fall back." This is followed by floating verses, many taken from "The Birds' Courting Song (Leatherwing Bat)"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (recording, Clint Howard et al)
KEYWORDS: courting floatingverses nonballad playparty
FOUND IN: US(SE)
Roud #733
RECORDINGS:
Clint Howard et al, "The Old Man at the Mill" (on Ashley02, WatsonAshley01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Bird's Courting Song (The Hawk and the Crow; Leatherwing Bat)" (floating lyrics)
NOTES [93 words]: This certainly shares a good deal with "The Birds' Courting Song (Leatherwing Bat)," but there are enough differences that I have split them. - PJS
Roud, interestingly, lumps it not with that song but with "The Miller Boy (Jolly is the Miller I)," presumably on the basis of the first verse. The result may well be a complex composite of the two. - RBW
In their notes to Ashley02 the Rinzlers attribute this "happy combination of two separate songs: a well-known play party, 'The Jolly Miller'; and 'The Bird Song' or 'The Leather Winged Bat'" to Ashley. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: RctOMatM

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