“Cupid's Trepan (Cupid's Trappan, The Bonny Bird)”

Description

"Once did I love a bonny brave bird, And thought he had been all my own, But he lov'd another far better than me, And has taken his flight and is flown." The jilted lover in turn has turned to another, leaving the first lover lonely

Supplemental text

Cupid's Trepan (Cupid's Trappan, The Bonny Bird)
  Complete text(s)

          *** A ***

The Bonny Bird

Fragmentary text, from pp. 149-150 of W. Chappell/H. E. Wooldridge,
Old English Popular Music. The diverse spellings of "bonny/bonnie"
are in the Chappell text.

Once did I love a bonny brace bird,
  And thought he had been all my own,
But he lov'd another far better than me,
  And has taken his flight and is flown,    Brave Boys,
  And has taken his flight and is flown.

Up the green forest, and down the green forest,
  Like one distressed in mind,
I hoopt and I hoopt, and I flung up my hood,
  But my bonnie bird I could not find,      Brave Boys,
  But my bonnie bird I could not find.

Notes

This set of words clearly is of broadside origin (though likely inspired by a song of the "Dear Companion" type). But the evidence of the broadsides indicates that the tune, at least, entered oral tradition. I'm indexing it on that basis.

A "trepan" (trappan) is a trick or, by extension, a trickster. Thus Cupid's trepan is a trick played by Cupid on a lover.

Although it is also possible to take "Trepan" as "Trapan," which was the kidnapping of children and sending them as servants to the colonies. There is, e.g., a song (probably of broadside origin) of "The Trapann'd Maiden," quoted by Samuel Eliot Morison in _The Oxford History of the American People_, p. 83, about a girl taken and sent to Virginia. Thus this song may even have links to songs such as "Australia (Virginny)."

Roud lumps this with all sorts of songs, I assume on the basis of tune. - RBW

Same tune

• The Bonny Young Irish Boy [Laws P26] (File: LP26)
• Of late I did hear a young man domineer/The Milkmaid's Resolution (BBI ZN2108)
• I am a young man that do follow the plow/The Plowman's Art in Wooing (BBI ZN1240)
• Of late did I hear a young damsel complain/Young Man put to his shifts (BBI ZN2107)
• Once did I love and a very pretty Girl/The Batchellors Fore-cast..an Answer to Cupids Trappan (BBI ZN2160)

References

1. Chappell/Wooldridge II, pp. 149-150, "Cupid's Trepan" (1 tune, partial text)
2. ST ChWII149 (Full)
3. Roud #293
4. BI, ChWII149