Digital Tradition Mirror

Green Broom (2)

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Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Green Broom (2)

     There was an auld man,
     And he lived i the west,
     His trade was a cutter
     O broom, green broom.

     He had a lazy boy,
     And Bob was his name,
     And he lay in his bed
     Till noon, till noon.
     _______________________________________________________

     Montgomerie SC (1948), 155 (no. 284), from Angus.
     An English version in Halliwell 1842, 77 (ci).  The
ballad of which this is the first stanza is in Pills to Purge
Melancholy (1720), VI.100, "The Jolly Broom-Man: Or, the
unhappy Boy turn'd Thrifty"; traditional copies in e.g.
Broadwood, English County Songs [1892], 88; FSJ no. 3 (I.3,
1901), 84, "Green Broom". The story is that the lazy boy is
prompted to go and cut broom and finds it very saleable; in
the trad. copies he marries a satisfied customer. See also
Bruce & Stokoe Northumbrian Minstrelsy (1882), 99, with
music; our text approx. = st. 1.

MS

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