Chastity Belt, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer asks, "Gentle maiden, may I be your lover." She cannot; she is married to Sir (Oswald), who is off to the wars with the key to her chastity belt. A locksmith cannot free her. Sir Oswald returns but has lost the key. But his page has a duplicate
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (Morgan/Green-RugbySongs)
KEYWORDS: humorous bawdy courting rejection trick technology
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Morgan/Green-RugbySongs, pp. 52-53, "The Chastity Belt" (1 text)
DT, CHASBELT*
Roud #10125
NOTES [287 words]: Patently composed (the "nonny nonny" chorus alone should prove that!), but no author has ever confessed to creating the piece (and whoever came up with it is surely dead by now). It is clever enough that it has spread widely, although I don't know how many people managed to learn it without reference to print.
I doubt anyone thinks the song very old, but the earliest possible date is in the nineteenth century. It wasn't until 1840 or so that Linus Yale Sr. went into business, and not until 1850 that his son Linus Jr. joined the company; not until the 1860s did Linus Jr. come up with the cylinder lock -- the true "Yale." Allowing a few years for the name to become famous and we are forced to date the song after 1870. Obviously the use of the Yale lock is a deliberate anachronism.
There is one glitch by the author that I don't think was deliberate: the woman's husband is "Sir Oswald, that cunning old Celt." But Oswald is a Saxon name -- there was a Saxon King of Northumbria, St. Oswald, who helped lead Northumbria to Christianity n who reigned from 634 until probably 642, when he was killed by the army of Penda of Mercia..
In a mudcat thread about this song, a number of people felt that the song should have had additional verses; a few even supplied them. But I'm fairly sure that the usual ending -- "Then up stepped the page-boy... I'll open it up with my duplicate key" is the proper ending: the shocked realization that all Sir Oswald's elaborate precautions, which led to a disaster, were completely pointless because the page-boy had had the ability to get at Mrs. Sir Oswald any time he liked.
That thread, incidentally, does prove oral circulation, since the number of variations is quite high. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: RuSoChaB

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