I Am a Pretty Wench (I)

DESCRIPTION: "I am a pretty wench, And I come a great way hence, And sweethearts I can get none: But every dirty sow Can get sweethearts enow, And I, pretty wench, can get never a one."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1784 (Gammer Gurton's Garland)
KEYWORDS: oldmaid
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 525, "I am a pretty wench" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #82, p. 84, "(I am a pretty wench)"
cf. VaughanWilliams/Lloyd-PenguinBookOfEnglishFolkSongs, p. 84, "The Ploughman" (1 text, 1 tune, not this song as printed, but the notes reveal that the informant's version began with a verse of this)
ADDITIONAL: Joseph Ritson, Gammer Gurton's Garland (London, 1810 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 23, ("I am a pretty wench") (1 text)
Roud #2538
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Condescencing Lass
Pretty Wench
File: BGMG082

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography