> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > The Bold Gambling Boy
> Peter Bellamy > Songs > The Little Black Horse (The Penny Wager)
> Louis Killen > Songs > One Penny

Adventures of a Penny / The Bold Gambling Boy / The Little Black Horse / One Penny / The Penny Wager

[ Roud 393 ; Master title: Adventures of a Penny ; Ballad Index McCST115 ; Bodleian Roud 393 ; GlosTrad Roud 393 ; Wiltshire 132 , 831 ; trad.]

Marrow Bones Songs of the West Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland

A.L. Lloyd sang The Bold Gambling Boy in 1962 on the Topic EP Gamblers and Sporting Blades. It was reissued in the USA on the Riverside LP Champions and Sporting Blades and in 1998 on the Topic CD Bold Sportsmen All. Lloyd noted on the original EP:

A simple seeming character encounters a company of slick gamblers; they try to fleece him and it is they who are shorn instead. The situation is ever successful in historical romances and Western films, and it has traditional parallels in the folk narratives known as the Jack Tales. The Bold Gambling Boy is one of the few of its kind. It has often been collected, yet only once published. It is hard to see why, for both text and tune have wit and point, and it is a song worth knowing.

Peter Bellamy sang The Little Black Horse in 1969 on his third solo LP, The Fox Jumps Over the Parson's Gate. Barry Dransfield accompanied him on the fiddle. A.L. Lloyd commented in the album's sleeve notes:

This much-loved trickster ballad was published by John Pitts, Seven Dials, London, in the opening years of the nineteenth century, and some forty years later, Kendrew of York had a big success with it. Doubtless on the strength of its broadside, the song survived well in Yorkshire, but the version published by Pitts was powerful in the West Country and both Baring-Gould and Sharp found it there. Peter Bellamy has his set of it from the singing of Bob Arnold in Oxfordshire. Arnold's ending is happy enough, but most southern versions, including the one noted by George Gardiner in Portsmouth Workhouse, are even happier, for when the gambler comes to pay his bill at the inn, all the landlady wants from him is a kiss.

George Dunn sang Little Grey 'Oss in 1972 to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. This recording was included in 2002 on his Musical Traditions anthology Chainmaker. Roy Palmer noted in the album's booklet:

This song was printed under the title The Adventures of a Penny, the earliest printing probably being that of Evans of London in the late eighteenth century. A.L. Lloyd has argued that copies issued early in the nineteenth century respectively by Pitts of London and Kendrew of York influenced oral tradition in the south and west of England on the one hand, the Midlands and Yorkshire on the other. George Dunn remembered only two verses (5 and 7), but seized gleefully on the full text I offered, which had the same interlaced refrain, and re-acquired the song.

Apart from a single Australian and two Irish entries for this song, all the rest of Roud's 38 examples come from the southern half of England—several from the SW Midlands. It also seems to have been quite a favourite amongst Travellers. Although there are six other singers who have been recorded, none but George is available on CD.

Ewan MacColl sang The Penny Wager in 1972 on his Argo LP Solo Flight.

Levi Smith sang One Penny to Mike Yates in May 1974 near Epsom, Surrey. This recording was published in 1977 on the Topic LP The Travelling Songster and in 1998 on the Topic anthology My Father's the King of the Gypsies (The Voice of the People Series Volume 11).

Brian Osborne sang The Penny Wager in 1976 on his Traditional Sound album Ae Fond Kiss. He noted:

Everyone likes to hear of a man’s success against others, especially if the odds are against him. This is a light-hearted view of a confidence trickster told in song, aversion of which was collected by Gardiner from William Todd in Portsmouth workhouse in 1907.

Louis Killen recorded One Penny in Winter 1977 at the Eldron Fennig Folk Museum of American Ephemera for his album Old Songs, Old Friends. He commented in his album's sleeve notes:

One Penny and John Barleycorn I learned, among a goodly number of other songs, from Brian Ballinger, while we were both members of the Heritage Society (in Oxford) in 1956/7.

Johnny Collins and Friends sang The Penny Wager in 1982 on their Traditional Sound album Free & Easy.

Mike Bosworth sang Bold Gambling Boy in 2004 on his album of songs from the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould collection, By Chance It Was.

Kate Rusby sang The Magic Penny in 2014 on her CD Ghost.

Marisa Jack & Davy sang The Penny Wager in October 2018 live at the Invisible Folk Club.

Jon Wilks sang Little Grey 'Oss on his 2021 album Up the Cut. He noted:

Yet another song from the singing of George Dunn, although this one was recorded during a visit by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1971, rather than by Roy Palmer. Their notes tell us that George was only able to recall verses five and seven. The two collectors felt they knew the song under a different title (The Adventures of a Penny), and when they furnished him with a full set of lyrics he pounced on them, presumably adding the complete song to his repertoire. In his final years, he’d become quite a popular singer amongst folk revivalists, and had taken the time to remember many more songs from his youth. This one must have slotted right in.

I’ve been faithful to the lyrics for the most part, rewriting only the final lines of verses six and seven as I felt sure that the rather unimaginative repetition in the George Dunn version may have had something to do with his memory in the moment of performance. Perhaps I was wrong. In which case, keep repeating “five pound three” for authenticity.

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