> Folk Music > Songs > Katie Catch

Katie Catch / Down in Yonder Meadow

[ Roud 12967 ; G/D 8:1575 ; Ballad Index SNR059 ; trad.]

Fay Hield found Katie Catch in Alice Bertha Gomme’s book The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland Vol. 2 (London: David Nutt, 1894) and from Iona and Peter Opie’s Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 1997), and sang it on her 2016 album Old Adam.

Lyrics

Fay Hield sings Katie Catch

Down in yonder meadow where the green grass grows,
Little Katie Catch goes a-washing of her clothes,
She sang, and she sang, and she sang so sweet,
Come over, Johnny Walker, come over the street.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Katie Catch come draw the latch
And sit by the fire and sing,
Take up a cup and fill it up
And let the neighbours in.

Little Katie Catch she made a pudding nice and sweet,
Young Johnny Walker took a spoon for to eat.
Taste love, taste love, don’t say no,
Tomorrow we’ll be married, to the church we will go.

Bedding sheets and pillow slips and blankets and all,
A little baby on your knee and that’s the best of all.
A guinea, a guinea, a guinea gold ring,
Come take me to the church and hear the little choir boys sing.

A guinea gold ring and a peacock hat,
A penny for the church and a feather for his cap.
She paints her cheek and he curls his hair,
She kisses Johnny Walker at the foot of the stair.