One Man Shall Mow My Meadow

DESCRIPTION: Singer states that various numbers of men shall mow her meadow and gather it together, as well as shear her sheep. The song is cumulative, hypnotic, and loaded with symbolism.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (Purslow-MarrowBones)
KEYWORDS: cumulative nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South)) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (17 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "ONE MAN SHALL MOW MY MEADOW"
Sharp-OneHundredEnglishFolksongs 100, "One Man Shall Mow My Meadow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-FolkSongsOfTheUpperThames, p. 288, "Mowing Down the Meadow" (1 text) (also Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Ox 280)
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 291, "The Counting Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 100, "One Man Shall Mow My Meadow" (1 text)
Palmer-FolkSongsCollectedBy-Ralph-VaughanWilliams, #2, "I Had One Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
Purslow-MarrowBones, p. 67, "One Man Shall Shear My Wethers" (1 text, 1 tune)
Nettleingham-TommysTunes, #91, "The Man, the Dog and the Meadow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-SongsAndBalladsFromNovaScotia 90, "Me One Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 55, "(One man went to mow)" (1 text, from user Helenliz, posted August 31, 2021)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 385, "One Man Went to Mow" (notes only)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings, p. 53, "One Man Went to Mow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsPopularEdition, p. 5, "One Man Went to Mow" (1 text)
ChansonsDeNotreChalet, p. 67, "One Man Shall Mow" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, ONEMANMW
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928, notes to #218, ("One man shall mow my meadow") (1 text)
Maud Karpeles, _Folk Songs of Europe_, Oak, 1956, 1964, p. 50, "One Man Shall Mow My Meadow" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST ShH100 (Partial)
Roud #143
RECORDINGS:
The Crofut Family, "One Man Shall Mow My Meadow" (Piotr-Archive #677, recorded 09/17/2023)
Christine Mary C. Morris, "One Man Went to Mow a Meadow" (Fragment: Piotr-Archive #39, recorded 07/20/2021)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Mower" (imagery)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Me One Man
Mowing Down the Meadow
One Man Shall Shear My Wethers
NOTES [97 words]: It's hard to decide whether there's a ritual element here, or whether the song itself is the ritual. -PJS
And here I thought it was just a dirty song covered with pastoral symbols....
At least some editors seem to think the same, because Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings cleans it up; it has a man and his dog go to the meadow!
The LibraryThingCampSongs version is interesting in that it has clearly been turned into something of a joke. This version is clearly an expansion of the Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings text (or a similar text from one of the other camp songbooks). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: ShH100

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