Digital Tradition Mirror

The Shoemakker

(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

The Shoemakker

My mother sent me to the school,
        To learn to be a stocking-knitter,
But I went wrang and play'd the fule,
        And married with a shoemakker.
                Shoemakker, leather cracker,
                With all his stinking dirty water,
                I wish a thousand deaths I'd died
                Ere I had wed a shoemakker.

His hands are like a cuddy's houghs,
(pony's knees[?] haunches[?])
        His face is like the high-lowed leather,
His ears are like I don't know what,
        His hair is like a bunch of heather.
                Shoemakker, leather cracker,
                Stinking kit and rotten leather,
                I wish a thousand deaths I had died
                Ere I had wed a shoemakker.

He sent me for a pint of wine,
        And I brought him a pint o' water,
But he played me as good a trick,
        He made my shoes o' rotten leather.
                Shoemakker, leather strapper,
                Three rows o' rotten leather,
                Balls o' wax and stinking water,
                Who would have a shoemakker.

From JC Bruce & J Stokoe, Northumbrian Minstrelsy, 1882
AJS
apr00

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!