When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire
Full well I served my master for more than seven year
Till I took up with poaching, as you will quickly hear
Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night, in the season of the year
As me and my comrades were setting of a snare
'Twas then we seed the gamekeeper - for him we did not care
For we can wrestle and fight, my boys and jump o'er anywhere
Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year
As me and my companions were setting four or five
And taking up on him again, we caught the hare alive
We caught the hare alive, my boys, and through the woods did steer
Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year
I threw him on my shoulder and then we trudged home
We took him to a neighbour's house, and sold him for a crown
We sold him for a crown, my boys, but I did not tell you where
Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year
Bad luck to every magistrate that lives in Lincolnshire
Success to every poacher that wants to sell a hare
Bad luck to every gamekeeper that will not sell his deer
Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year
abc | midi | pdf
Source: Palmer, R (1979) Everyman's Book of English Country Songs London, Dent and Sons
Notes:
Sung by Joe Saunders, traveller, at Biggin Hill, Kent; collected by Stephen Sedley, 1967. The singer has only a few lines of text, and the remainder has been supplied from R. Bell, Ballads and Songs, 1857, pp. 216-7, with verse 4 added from Chappell, p. 732.
Palmer notes:
Instead of 'Bad luck to every magistrate' in the last verse, some versions have 'Success to every gentleman'. No doubt the prudent singer would have suited his words to his audience. George IV had a particular liking for the song, and slighting references to his Justices of the Peace would hardly have been well received at Windsor.
George IV enjoyed the tune which is still well known, thanks to the National Song Book, but the melody much earlier associated with the song was 'The Manchester Angel'. This continued in oral circulation, and a recently collected version is given here.
The singer, a traveller called Joe Saunders, remarked: 'I'll sing you one they larns 'em in the schools - only they don't larn it 'em right.'
Although other counties - Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and even Somersetshire - are sometimes introduced, it seems that Lincolnshire was originally intended, at least from the evidence of the earliest printed version, which appeared in 1776.
Roud: 299 (Search Roud index at VWML) Take Six
Laws:
Child:
Related Songs: Poaching Song. (thematic)