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The Magpie’s Nest

[ Roud 2127 ; Ballad Index K182 ; trad.]

Both Sarah Makem and her cousin Annie Jane Kelly of Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, sang The Magpie’s Nest to Peter Kennedy and Sean O’Boyle in 1952. Annie Jane Kelly’s version was issued on the anthology Songs of Courtship (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 1; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968), in 1995 on the Saydisc anthology of Peter Kennedy recordings, Traditional Songs of Ireland, and in 2000 on the Rounder reissue of Songs of Seduction (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 2). Both versions were included in 2011 on Sarah Makem’s Musical Tradition anthology As I Roved Out. Rod Stradling noted:

Another song which seems well-known today, but has only 9 Roud entries, all of which relate to the Annie Jane Kelly recording […]. The air is that of a delightful sexually explicit song concerning the Cuckoo’s Nest—the words also owe a little to that song. The tune and a fragment of text appear in Herbert Hughes’s Irish Country Songs Vol. 2 (1914).

Shirley Collins sang The Magpie’s Nest on her 1967 album The Sweet Primeroses. She noted:

I learned this from a recording made by Peter Kennedy of Annie Jane Kelly of Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland. The lilting refrain indicates that this is a classic Irish dance tune. Gabriel Sullivan, the fine Irish flute player, has a tune called The Cuckoo’s Nest that is almost identical.

Alasdair Roberts sang The Magpie’s Nest in 2001 on his album The Crook of My Arm.

Peta Webb sang The Magpie’s Nest in 2003 as the title track of her Musical Traditions album The Magpie’s Nest.

Eric D. Johnson and Anaïs Mitchell sang The Magpie’s Nest on Bonny Light Horseman’s 2020 eponymous album Bonny Light Horseman.

Lyrics

Both Sarah Makem sings The Magpie’s Nest

For if I was a king sure I would make you my queen,
I would roll you in my arms when the meadows they are green;
Yes I’d roll you in my heart’s content, I would sit you down to rest
’Longsides me Irish colleen in the magpie’s nest.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Skiddle idle dahdle doodle idle ahdle dum
D’lidle ahdle oo dahdle idle idle dum
Skiddle idle ahdle doodle dahdle idle doodle dum
I would leave you down to rest in the magpie’s nest.

For the magpie’s nest it is a cottage neat and clean,
It stands ’longsides the Shannon where the meadows they are green.
But I never met a colleen with such beauties blessed
Like the little Irish fairy in the magpie’s nest.

For I have wandered all through Skerry I have wandered all through Clare,
From Dublin down to Galway from there to God knows where.
But I never met a colleen with such beauties blessed
Like the little Irish fairy in the magpie’s nest.

Shirley Collins sings The Magpie’s Nest

For if I was a king I would make you a queen,
I would roll you in my arms where the meadows they are green;
I would roll you in my heart’s content and I’d lay you down to rest
’Longside my Irish colleen in the magpie’s nest.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Skiddley-eedle-deedle-dowdle-deedle-didle-dum
Di-diddlee-idle-dum, deedle-deedle-didle-dum
Skiddley-eedle-deedle-deedle-didle-deedle-didle-dum
And I’d lay you down to rest in the magpies’s nest.

For the magpie’s nest it is a cottage neat and clean,
It stands ’longside the Shannon where the meadows they are green.
But I never saw a colleen with such beauties blessed
As my little Irish fairy in the magpie’s nest.

For I have wandered all through Kerry and I’ve wandered all through Clare,
From Galway down to Sligo and from there to God knows where.
But I never saw a colleen with such beauties blessed
As my little Irish fairy in the magpie’s nest.