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Basket of Eggs
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Martin Carthy >
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Eggs in Her Basket
The Basket of Eggs / Eggs in Her Basket / Eggs and Bacon
[
Roud 377
; Master title: The Basket of Eggs
; G/D 2:307
; Ballad Index VWL018
; Bodleian
Roud 377
; Mudcat 17061
; trad.]
Ralph Vaughan Williams collected The Basket of Eggs from several singers in the eastern counties including, in Norfolk, Joe Anderson at Kings Lynn in 1905 and George Locke at Rollesby in 1910, in Suffolk, Jake Willis at Hadleigh in 1907, and in Sussex, Henry Burstow at Horsham in 1903. The last version was printed in Vaughan Williams & A.L. Lloyd's book The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (1959).
Stan Steggles sang Eggs and Bacon in Rattlesden, Suffolk in 1958. This recording by Des Herring was included in 1993 on the Veteran anthology Many a Good Horseman.
George Dunn sang The Basket of Eggs in a recording made by Roy Palmer on 24 May 1971 on his Musical Traditions anthology Chainmaker.
Fred List of Framingham sang Eggs in Her Basket in a recording made by Keith Summers in 1971-77 on the Veteran anthology Good Hearted Fellows: Traditional Folk Songs, Music Hall Songs, and Tunes from Suffolk. Mike Yates commented in the liner notes:
English folklorist Roy Palmer has traced this song to The Man of War's Garland, a chapbook that was printed in 1796 (Bodleian Library, Harding Chapbooks, A15, no. 19). The song was titled Eggs and Bacon and tells of two sailors who steal a woman's basket, thinking it to be full of eggs which they plan to have cooked in an alehouse. When a child is discovered in the basket they offer five hundred pounds to any woman who will foster the child. Of course, the whole thing is a set-up by the mother who, having recognised one of the sailors—the father of the child, takes the money before declaring who she is! Gavin Greig, the assiduous Scottish song collector found nine versions, which he titled The Foundling Baby, though singers throughout England and Scotland have preferred to use another broadside title The Basket of Eggs. In the late 1950s Ken Stubbs collected a version from a Gypsy called Frank Smith and a recording of the song, sung by Frank's wife Minty Smith, can be heard on the CD My Father's the King of the Gypsies.
Bob Blake sang The Basket of Eggs in a recording made by Mike Yates in 1972-75 on the Topic anthology Sussex Harvest: A Collection of Traditional Songs from Sussex. This track was also included in 2001 on the Musical Traditions anthology of songs from the Mike Yates collection, Up in the North and Down in the South.
Minty Smith sang The Basket of Eggs in a recording made by Mike Yates in her home near Epsom, Surrey in c. 1974 on the 1977 Topic album The Travelling Songster: An Anthology from Gypsy Singers. This track was also included in 1998 on My Father's the King of the Gypsies (The Voice of the People Series Volume 11).
Tony Rose sang Basket of Eggs unaccompanied in 1971 on his second Trailer album, Under the Greenwood Tree. He commented in his sleeve notes:
[Searching for Lambs] certainly contrasts markedly with the tongue in cheek humour of Basket of Eggs—another song which, surprisingly, is not heard often in the folk clubs. The sailor, like the tailor in many other songs, seems to fall an easy prey to the sharp-witted girl of whom he thinks he can take advantage. It reminds me of the old Westcountryman who, finding himself the target of the visiting townsman's jibe about rustic slowness, commented laconically that slow he might be, but there weren't many able to live for nine months of the year on what they made out of the visitors in the other three!
Roy Harris sang this song with the title Sandbank Fields as title track of his 1977 album, By Sandbank Fields.
Linda Adams sings Basket of Eggs too, accompanied by John Bowden, concertina, and Jez Lowe, cittern, on the 1986 Fellside anthology A Selection from The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. The record's sleeve notes said:
From Henry Burstow, Horsham, Sussex; noted in 1903 by Ralph Vaughan Williams. This wry song of two sailors who thought to outwit a trusting girl and were themselves tricked has been found in slightly differing versions in Norfolk, Herefordshire, Sussex and Shetland.
Martin Carthy recorded this songs as Eggs in Her Basket in 1988 with somewhat different verses for his album Right of Passage. This track was also included in his compilation The Collection. Martin Carthy commented in the original album's sleeve notes:
In the 1970s, a cardboard box containing over a hundred wax cylinders of music, recorded before the first World War, came to light in Cecil Sharp House. They were in varying states of decrepitude—none was identified—so the educated guessers went to work and they identified a Vaughan Williams recording of Harriet Verrall singing Eggs in Her Basket, whence I learned this. The sailor's flash of temper at the end would seem to make him a cousin in spirit to the character finally on the receiving end in A Stitch in Time, a true story put into song by Mike Waterson about four years ago. It happened about 1962 in the Hessle Road area of Hull and the tune is that of a brutal Royal Navy song called On Board of a Man-of-War.
However, in the The Collection sleeve notes, the singer of the Vaughan Williams recording of Eggs in Her Basket is identified as gypsy singer Priscilla Cooper.
Lyrics
Tony Rose sings Basket of Eggs | Linda Adams sings Basket of Eggs |
---|---|
Down in Sandbank fields, two sailors were a-walking, |
Down in Sandbank fields, two sailors they were walking, |
So it's one of these sailors he took the little basket. |
One of these sailors took the basket. |
Oh it's when these two sailors came into an ale-house, |
When these two sailors came unto an ale-house, |
Oh 'twas then that the landlord he went unto the basket, |
'Twas then the landlord he went to the basket, |
This pretty little damsel was sitting by the fire |
This pretty young damsel she sat by the fire |
For it's “Don't you remember a-dancing with Nancy, |
“Don't you remember a-dancing with Nancy, |
Martin Carthy sings Eggs in Her Basket | |
It is of two sailor lads both set out a-walking Oh one of those young men These two young men oh they start out boldly Oh that landlord went out to the basket, Up steps this young Nancy, o dearest Nancy, “That child's not ours, lovely Nancy, Oh that young man went up to the basket, |