Barrack Hill Cavan, The

DESCRIPTION: "You young men all attention pay and fair maids lend an ear"; the singer has been taken in "Cupid's trap" by a girl who lives on Barrack Hill. She prefers another. He is weak and devastated. The singer gives a riddle for her name
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1931 (Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania); c. 1867 (various Bodleian broadsides)
KEYWORDS: love courting rejection riddle
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania, pp. 270-271, "The Maid of Barrack Hill" (1 text)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.7(8), Harding B 26(39), Johnson Ballads 3089, Johnson Ballads 3271, and Johnson Ballads 2111c, "The Barrack Hill Cavan," P. Brereton (Dublin), c. 1867 (most of these appear to be the same typesetting but with different second songs)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Drihaureen O Mo Chree (Little Brother of My Heart)" (song with a name riddle)
cf. "The Belfast Beauty" (song with a name riddle)
NOTES [86 words]: For "name riddles" see the cross-references. This one is unusually difficult:
Now if you wish to know her name a vowel yon must chase
Three letters from a fi h?n it you most peruse,
Three letters from a cet in book their proper placesfill,
It will tell tee name of this fair maid the pride of barrack hill.
Note the ? in the second line. All the Brereton broadsides seem to have a bit of broken type there, so we are missing a letter. And it's a lousy piece of typesetting anyway, so there may be other errors. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: Shoe279

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