Sair Fyel'd, Hinny

DESCRIPTION: "(I/Aw) was young and lusty, I was fair and clear... Mony a lang year." "Sair fyel'd, hinny, sair fyel'd now, Sair fyel'd, hinny, sin' I ken'd thou." The singer looks back on his young days, and admits, at 65, to being both "stiff and cauld."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1834 (Sharp, The Bishopric Garland)
KEYWORDS: youth age
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North),Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Stokoe/Reay-SongsAndBalladsOfNorthernEngland, p. 48, "Sair Fyel'd, Hinny" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig/Duncan3 481, "The Shoemaker at His Last" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: [Cuthbert Sharp], _The Bishopric Garland, A Collection of Legends, Songs, Ballads, &c Belonging to the County of Durham_, 1834 (references are to the 1969 reprint), p. 70, "Sair Fail'd, Hinney" (1 text)
ST StoR048 (Full)
Roud #3062
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Says the Old Man to the Oak Tree" (lyrics)
NOTES [127 words]: At least some versions of this share the lyric "Says t'auld man to th' old tree" ("Says the Old Man to the Oak Tree), also found in Gammer Gurton's Garland, but I don't know if they were initially two which joined or one which split. I very tentatively split them because, well, we're splitters.
"Sair" is of course "sore," so "extremely, very." "Hinny" is a term of affection. Lindsay Marshall tells me that "fyel'd"/"fyeld" is dialect for "felled,"i.e."broken down." Hence "Sair fyel'd, hinny" is "basically, 'I'm knackered, pet' or 'I'm past it.' I doubt you'd hear anyone say Sair Fyeld these days though but people do say hinny still." - RBW
The Greig/Duncan3 version is printed with strokes above the notes indicating a hammer stroke during singing. - BS
Last updated in version 6.3
File: StoR048

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