“The Brisk and Bonny Lass (The Brisk and Bonny Lad)”
Description
Cheerful description of the life of a farm girl. She wakes at dawn and milks the cows as the larks sing; at haying time they go dancing, At harvest they work, then celebrate; even in winter, all are happy; she declares herself content to be a country lass
Notes
With mechanization and the change from female to male labor on farms, some versions have switched the sex of the narrator. - PJS
Sometimes in midstream, in fact.
I find myself wondering if this didn't start out as a fragment of a proper ballad about a brisk farm girl, with the actual plot (about a marriage, perhaps? -- the beginning of the song sounds very much like a ballad of that type) being broken off and replaced by these lyrics. - RBW
Cross references
- cf. "Country Life" (theme)
- cf. "The Contented Countryman" (theme)
Recordings
- James & Bob Copper, "The Contented Country Lad" (on Lomax41, LomaxCD41)
References
- Kennedy 244, "The Brisk and Bonny Lass" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Roud #606
- BI, K244