Digital Tradition Mirror

Pop Goes the Weasel (2)

Pop Goes the Weasel (2)

1.
Roond aboot the parritch pot,
  Fechtin for the theevil,
That's the way the money goes,
  Pop goes the Weasel!

My wee boy's a bonny wee boy,
  Your wee boy's a deevil;
That's the way the money goes,
  Pop goes the Weasel!

2.
Up and doon Jamaica Street,
  Riding on an Eagle;
That's the [way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.]

3.
The hireies roond the porridge pot,
Lickin' at the theavil;
That's the wey the meal's sae dear,
Pop goes the weasel!
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(1) Nicht at Eenie (1932), 34; Montgomerie SNR (1946),
94 (no. 116), with music.  Cf. Ritchie Singing Street
(1964), 104, "My wee wife's a bonny wee wife" etc.  St.
2 reversed in Rymour Club Misc. I (1906-11), 123: "Your
wee man's a bonnie wee man,/ My wee man's a deevil" etc.
(from Crawford).
(2) Rymour Club, ibid.; used for "deedling" when
dancing.  Identical version as a skipping rhyme from
Glasgow, in MacColl, Streets of Song no. 26:  "High
stepping or trotting during first line of song, changing
to both feet together on second and fourth lines."
(3) Rymour Club, 176 (2 lines), "On Dear Meal"; "Common
in Forfar loom-shops long ago".  Rodger Lang Strang
(1948), 6, has "Roond aboot the porridge pot".
Ritchie Golden City (1965), 19, has 2 versions, one close to
the English [Half a pound o' tuppeny rice] and another more
individual [Every night when I go home/ Monkey's on the
table] sung for a (sort of) dance, where the girl who is out
goes between a pair holding hands, takes the hands of the
girl she faces, and they sing and dance to the rhyme; the
other girl now goes and intervenes in another couple.

MS

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!