Brisk and Bonny Lass, The (The Brisk and Bonny Lad)

DESCRIPTION: Cheerful description of the life of a farm girl. She wakes at dawn and milks the cows as the larks sing; at haying time they go dancing, At harvest they work, then celebrate; even in winter, all are happy; she declares herself content to be a country lass
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1891 (Barrett)
KEYWORDS: courting farming harvest work dancing nonballad worker
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "COUNTRY LASS, THE"
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 244, "The Brisk and Bonny Lass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Gl 120, "Happy Country Lass" (1 text)
Palmer-EnglishCountrySongbook, #17, "The Country Lass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Copper-ASongForEverySeason, pp. 268-269, "The Brisk and Bonny Lad" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #606
RECORDINGS:
James & Bob Copper, "The Contented Country Lad" (on Lomax41, LomaxCD41)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Country Life" (theme)
cf. "The Contented Countryman" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Country Lass
Harvest Home Song
NOTES [74 words]: With mechanization and the change from female to male labor on farms, some versions have switched the sex of the narrator. - PJS
Sometimes in midstream, in fact.
I find myself wondering if this didn't start out as a fragment of a proper ballad about a brisk farm girl, with the actual plot (about a marriage, perhaps? -- the beginning of the song sounds very much like a ballad of that type) being broken off and replaced by these lyrics. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: K244

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