Four Little Johnny Cakes

DESCRIPTION: "Hurrah for the Lachlan, come join me in my cheer, For that's the place to make a cheque At the end of every year." When not working as a shearer, the singer enjoys "Camping in the bend" with the cakes he has cooked and the books and such he has "shook"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Paterson's _Old Bush Songs_)
KEYWORDS: sheep food work
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Paterson/Fahey/Seal-OldBushSongs-CentenaryEdition, pp. 276-279, "Four Little Johnny Cakes" (1 text)
Fahey-PintPotAndBilly, pp. 58-59, "Four Little Johnny Cakes" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, FOURJOHN*
ADDITIONAL: Bill Wannan, _The Australians: Yarns, ballads and legends of the Australian tradition_, 1954 (page references are to the 1988 Penguin edition), pp. 73-74, "My Four Little Johnny-Cakes" (1 text)
A. K. MacDougall, _An Anthology of Classic Australian Lore_ (earlier published as _The Big Treasury of Australian Foiklore_), The Five Mile Press, 1990, 2002, p. 307, "My Four Little Johnny Cakes" (1 text)
Bill Beatty, _A Treasury of Australian Folk Tales & Traditions_, 1960 (I use the 1969 Walkabout Paperbacks edition), p. 287, "My Four Little Johnny Cakes" (1 text)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Camping in the Bend
The Shearer's Song
NOTES [102 words]: Edward E. Morris, A Dictionary of Austral English, 1898 (I use the 1972 Sydney University Press with a new foreword but no new content), p. 223, gives this definition: "Johnny-cake. n. The name is of American origin, originally given by the negroes to a cake made of Indian corn (maize). In Australia it is a cake baked on the ashes or cooked in a frying-pan.... The name is used in the United States for a slightly different cake, viz. made with Indian mean and toasted before a fire." The earliest citation of the Australian usage is 1861 and reads "The dough-cakes fried in fat, called 'Johnny-cakes.'" - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: PFS276

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