Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/267

259 SONGS.

.

SUNG by the fool (called "Billy Bellzebub") in the "Guisers' Play," as performed yearly at Eccleshall, Staffordshire, and Newport, Shropshire.

Collated from three copies: two written out by John Bates, sawyer, Eccleshall, and Elijah Simpson, chimney-sweep, Newport, and the other taken down from recitation of Christopher Bennett labourer, Eccleshall, 20th Jan. 1886.

The air will appear in Shropshire Folk-Lore, part iii.

I am a jovial tinker,

And have been all my life,

So now I think it's time

To seek a fresh young wife.

And it's then with a friend we'll a merry life spend,

Which I never did yet, I vow,

With my rink-a-tink tink, and a sup more drink,

I'll make your old kettles cry sound,

Sound, sound!

I'll make your old kettles cry sound.

"My jacket's all pitches and patches,

And on it I give a sly look,

My trousers all stitches and statches

[Wouldn't quite suit a lord or a duke];

But it's pitches and patches I wear

Till I can get better or new;

I take the wide world as I find it,

Brave boys, if I'm ragged I'm true,

True, true!

Brave boys, if I'm ragged I'm true.