Fa Hingit the Monkey? - no.2

Here we have group 'The Young 'uns' performing Alan Wilkinson's version live -



I have tracked down the song Paul referred to on the forum, about the Tyneside Baboon - bit of a different tale, and one from Greenock as well!

Sum time since, sum wild beasts thre cam to the toon,
And in the collection a famous Baboon,
In uniform drest-if my story you're willin
To believe, he gat lowse, and ran te the High Fellin

Fal de rol la, &c.

Three Pitmen cam up- they were smoking their pipe,
When straight in afore them Jake lowp'd ower the dike:
Ho, Jemmy! smash, marrow! here's a red-coated Jew,
For his fyece is a' hairy, and he hez on nae shoe!

Wey, man, thou's a fuil! for ye divent tell true,
If thou says 'at that fellow was ever a Jew;
Aw'll lay thou a quairt, as sure's my nyem's Jack,
That queer luikin chep's just a Russian Cossack.

He's ne Volunteer, aw ken biv his wauk;
And if he's outlandish, we'll ken biv his tauk;
He's a lang sword ahint him, ye'll see'd when he turns;
Ony luik at his fyece! smash his byens, how he gurns!

Tom flang doon his pipe, and set up a greet yell;
He's owther a spy, or Bonnypairty's awnsell;
Iv a crack the High Fellin was in full hue and cry,
To catch Bonnypairt, or the hairy French spy.

The wives scamper'd off for fear he should bite,
The men-folks and dogs ran to grip him se tight;
If we catch him, said they, he's hev ne lodging here,
Ne, not e'en a drop o' reed Robin's sma' beer.

Armstrong,(1827) In: The Newcastle Song Book or Tyne-Side Songster., W&T Fordyce Newcastle Upon Tyne.
The baboon seems to have got off lucky!

Not so the poor Greenock beastie, dating from a late 1800s broadside ballad:

IN Greenock town, I've heard it said,
A man there lived, who to his trade
A fisher was, a rummy blade,
His freens they cawed him Dunkey, O.

Now, a sailor brither he had got,
Wha'd just come hame frae Hottentot,
And frae that savage place he brought
A full-grown, living monkey, O.

Chorus.

For four lang years, 'twas telt to me,
This sailor chiel had been to sea,
When he came hame to hae a spree,
He wasna' very funky, O.

So, wi his monkey in a box,
At Dunkey's door he quickly knocks,
And the nicht was spent wi sangs and jokes,
But he ne'er said he'd got a monkey, O.

Now ye maun ken, this sailor lad,
A sweetheart up in Glasgow had,
So to see her next day he would pad,
In spite o' freens or Dunkey, O.

Early next morning he did rise,
As the sun began to climb the skies;
Says he, Na doubt he'll get a surprise.
When he wankens and twiggs the monkey, O.

Now the monkey thocht, like human kin,
'Twas time some breakfast was brocht in;
It then began to yell and whin,
And through the room went dancing, O.

You'd thocht t'was some ane killing pigs,
For it yell'd and cut some antic riggs,
And danced some first-rate Irish jigs.
As through the house it went prancing, O.

But a' this din and wild uproar
The monkey made upon the floor;
The fisherman he loud did snore—
'Twas hard to wauken Dunkey, O.

At length he thocht 'twas time to rise,
And he looked about him wi' surprise,
For on a table he espies
A thing in the shape o' a monkey. O.

Now Dunkey jumped up to his feet,
Like lightning he ran to the street,
And twa-three fishermen he did meet,
And oh, but he felt funky, O!

He telt his story—wi' ae consent
To Dunkey's domicile they went;
And they swore they'd mak the thing repent,
Be it a man or a monkey, O.

Now the monkey at the men did stare,
For they strapped him down upon a chair,
Says ane—On his face there's ower much hair,
To shave him I'll no be funky, O.

Ane o' them ran and got some soap,
And made a lather pipin' hot,
While another held him by the throat,
Till the fisherman shaved the monkey, O.
Now the fishermen they laughed like mad,

Such fun before they never had,
When a wild young chiel, whose name was Rak
Proposed to hang the monkey, O.
Then round its neck a rope they threw,
And through a cleek the end they drew,
And quickly to the riff it flew,
For the fishermen hung the monkey, O.

I'm beginning to see a pattern here! The blason populaire aspect of saying country folk or fishers are so stupid they don't know what a monkey is!

Prof. Donald Meek tells me that sailors in his native Tiree often brought monkeys home as pets and everyone knew fine what they were!

On the subject of interactions of communities with far-away places, I read in the 1791 Statistical Account of Scotland, that fishermen in Boddam and Peterhead would have regularly met Norwegian, Dutch and other folk from the Baltic; not to mention that Earl Marischal Keith - one of them anyway - who founded PD - was a famous mercenary soldier in Europe. Hartlepool also would have had similar knowledge of Europeans, being a main port since the middle ages for County Durham.

so... it's ok if Boddamers or Hartlepudlians say it against themselves, but not if someone says it to them!

more later!