Bold Poachers, The

DESCRIPTION: Three brothers go poaching one night in January. The sound of their guns brings the gamekeepers. One shoots a gamekeeper, then another. The brothers are taken prisoner; two are sentenced to be transported, the third is hanged
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1862 (broadside, Bodleian Firth c.19(47))
KEYWORDS: violence crime execution poaching punishment transportation death homicide
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "OAKHAM POACHERS, THE"
MacColl/Seeger-TravellersSongsFromEnglandAndScotland 98, "The First Day in October" (1text, 1 tune); this entry also contains 1 nearly-complete text for "The Bold Poachers" (collected by E. J. Moeran, not by them)
Kidson-TraditionalTunes, p. 134, "The Oakham Poachers" (1 fragment)
Sedley/Carthy-WhoKilledCockRobin, pp. 32-35, "The Oakham Poachers" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, POACHRS
Roud #1686
RECORDINGS:
Brian Oxberry, "The Bold Poachers" (Fragment: Piotr-Archive #58, recorded 07/27/2021)
Wiggie Smith, "The Oakham Poachers" (on Voice18)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.19(47), "Oakham Pachers [sic] ("Young men in every station"), E.M.A. Hodges (London), 1855-1861; also 2806 c.15(253), Harding B 20(199), "Oakam Poachers" or "The Lamentation of Young Perkins"; Firth c.19(63), Johnson Ballads 2038, "The Oakham Poachers"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Keepers and Poachers" (plot)
cf. "The Poacher's Fate" [Laws L14] (subject)
NOTES [38 words]: MacColl & Seeger call "The First Day in October" a composite, and so it is, but the similarities to "The Bold Poachers," particularly the use of the name Parkins for the guilty young man, have persuaded me to place it here. - PJS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: McCST098

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