Navvy Boy, The

DESCRIPTION: The navvy boy goes roaming, finding work and shelter with a ganger. The ganger's only daughter wishes marry and travel with him. The girl's mother questions this; the daughter says that her father was a navvy.The old man dies and leaves them 500 pounds
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: love courting rambling mother father marriage money
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H760, pp. 471-472, "The Navvy Boy" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, NAVVYBOY*
ADDITIONAL: Jon Raven, _VIctoria's Inferno: Songs of the Old Mills, Mines, Manufacturies, Canals, and Railways_, Roadside Press, 1978, pp. 33-34, "The Navvy Boy" (1 text, 1 tune, from the Henry collection)
Roud #360
NOTES [41 words]: It has been suggested that this is a reworking of "The Little Beggarman." There are common elements, but that's quite a stretch. Roud lumps it with "The Roving Irishman," which also has points of similarity but appears a separate song to me. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.1
File: HHH760

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