> Folk Music > Songs > Cold Stringy Pie / The Farmer and His Servants

Mutton Pie / Cold Stringy Pie / The Farmer and His Servants

[ Roud 1408 ; Master title: Mutton Pie ; TYG 30 ; Ballad Index OSY233 ; GlosTrad Roud 1408 ; Mudcat 36152 ; trad.]

Mary and Nigel Hudleston: Songs of the Ridings Roy Palmer: A Touch on the Times Roy Palmer: Everyman’s Book of English Country Songs

Mr Hill from Tetford, Lincolnshire, sang Rattle Mutton Pie to Fred Hamer on 28 July 1967. This recording was included in 1989 on the VWML cassette of field recordings of Fred Hamer, The Leaves of Life.

Two variants of this song can be found in the book Songs of the Ridings: The Yorkshire Musical Museum (2001). One is The Farmer and His Servants as sung by Nigel A. Hudleston, the other is Mutton Pie as sung by ‘Bumblebee’ Jim Baron of West Lutton to Steve Gardham in 1972.

Dave Hillery sang Cowd Stringy Pie in 1971 on his and Harry Boardman’s Topic album of popular song and verse from Lancashire and Yorkshire, Trans Pennine. They noted:

This kind of ‘hungry farmer’ song with its strong note of criticism was more familiar in the Scottish bothies than the English acres. Nevertheless, this one is very characteristic, depicting as it does the easily recognisable regional stereotype of the mean, horse-dealing slave-driving Yorkshire boss. Kidson, in a note on I’Ansons Racehorse (EFDSS journal No.9, 1906) refers to the fact that Stringy Pie was attached to the same tune but gives no words. Both words and tune of this present version were collected by Dave Hillery from Mrs Ada Cade of York in 1965.

Jim Eldon sang Mutton Pie on his 1984 album I Wish There Was No Prisons. He noted:

I’ve heard bits and pieces of Mutton Pie from singers all round East Yorkshire but I first heard it from my wife Lynette. Her dad used to sing all sorts of nonsense to her and her sisters—Mutton Pie, Solomon Went to His Engine, Johnson’s Jubilee, Robin to Bobbin, You See I Am an Orphan, Major General Worthington—and whistling—he could whistle two notes at once! Half of this is Lyn’s dad’s and half from a chap called Chas Scott down Summergangs Road in Hull. Chas Scott had been a farm worker in Holderness, then moved into Hull to work for the Parks Department. He sang The Watery Grave too. That’s another song Lyn’s dad knows.

Graham Metcalfe sang Cawd Stringy Pie in 1996 on his WildGoose CD Songs From Yorkshire and Other Civilisations. He noted:

A song spelling out the meanness of Yorkshire men, which we all know isn’t true, don’t we? Source—the late Mrs Ada Cade from York.

Brian Peters sang Cold Stringy Pie on his 1997 CD Sharper Than the Thorn. He noted:

The late and great Harry Boardman sang Cold Stringy Pie regularly during my formative years in Manchester folk clubs. It’s from Yorkshire, and tells of the munificence, philantrophy and haute cuisine commonly associated with that county.

Brian Dawson sang Old Yorkie Watson, as collected by him, at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife in May 2011. This recording was included in the following year on the festival anthology The Little Ball of Yarn (Old Songs & Bothy Ballads Volume 8).

Lyrics

Jim Baron sings Mutton Pie

There was an old farmer at Rookdale did dwell.
He ’ad seven sarvants and you all know him well.

Chorus:
Tiddly wag fol the diddle all the day,
Tiddly wag fol the diddle all the day.

Now, we ’ave and old lass, she is a damn feal,
She makes sike pies as yan can’t eat.
Pies made of iron, bread made o’ bran,
The’ rattle in your belly like an old tin can.

Chorus

Oh, we ’ave an old yow, yonder laid dead,
Fetch’ er up, bullocky fetch ’er on the sly.
She’ll mek oor lads some rare mutton pie.

Chorus

Brian Dawson sings Old Yorkie Watson

1. There was old farmer in Temple Bruer dwelled,
His name was Yorkie Watson and we all knew him well;
He kept six chaps on bullybeef and stout,
And when you went to plough, lads, he made you dump it out.
With a fol da riddle I do, work it all the day