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Fenland Song

[Fred Rooke]

Pig farmer Fred Rooke sang his own Fenland Song, recorded by Peter Kennedy in October 1974, on the Folktrax cassette of songs and customs of Cambridgeshire and the Fens, The Chain of Gold (FTX-423).

The Shackleton Trio sang Fenland Song on their 2018 album Fen, Farm & Deadly Water.

Lyrics

The Shackleton Trio sings Fenland Song

There are farmers a-living in the fens which once was the floor of the sea
And it may very well be sea again if the water in the dyke get free
So beware of the hour when the captive power of the water in the dyke get free.

There are gangs of men a-hoeing in the peat on the sooty black fields where they grow
And the walls of the dykes stand forty feet above the men who hoe
So beware of the hour when the captive power of the water in the dyke get free.

There are families a-living in the fen where they’ve every right to be
But would the water care for the right of man or the right of the family?
So beware of the hour when the captive power of the water in the dyke get free.

And supposing that those fenmen are stood as firmly as can be
They’d be gathered up like so much wood and be carried out to sea
So beware of the hour when the captive power of the water in the dyke get free.