Digital Tradition Mirror

Brisk Young Widow

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Brisk Young Widow

In Chester town there lived a brisk young widow
For beauty and fine clothes none could excel her
She was proper, stout and tall, her fingers long and small
She's a comely dame withall, she's a brisk young widow

So a lover soon there came, a brisk young farmer
With his hat turned up all round, thinking to gain her
"My dear for love of you, this wide world I'll go through
If you will but prove true, you shall wed a farmer"

Says she "I'm not for you, nor no such fellow
I'm for some lively lad with lots of riches
It's not your hogs and yows can maintain furbelows
My silk and satin clothes they're all me glory"

"Madam, don't be coy for all your glory
For fear of another day and another story
If the world on you should frown, your topknot must come down
To a linsey-woolsey gown, where is then your glory ?"

And at last there came that way a sooty collier
With his hat bent down all round he soon did gain her
Whereat that farmer swore "Nay, widow's 'mazed I'm sure
I'll never court no more with a brisk young widow"

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recorded by The Young Tradition on "Galleries" (1968) and
by Peter Bellamy on "Voices. Traditional English Folk Songs" (1991)

collected by Cecil Sharp
MJ

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!