“Sheelicks”
Description
About a riotous wedding, attended by all whether invited or not, at McGinty's. A tailor with a wooden leg loses it in mid-dance; a cyclist is carried home in a wheelbarrow; a man comes with a hundred pounds, goes home with nothing. Plus the food is bad.
Long description
Singer tells of a riotous wedding, attended by all whether invited or not, at McGinty's Meal and Ale. Mrs. McGinty trips over a pig; a tailor with a wooden leg loses it in mid-dance; a bicyclist is carried home in a wheelbarrow; another man comes with a hundred pounds, goes home with nothing. The food is bad, besides. Chorus: "Hi, hi, went the drum! Diddle, diddle, went the fiddle/.../And the jing-a-ring went roond aboot like sheelicks in a riddle"
Notes
[MacColl & Seeger's] informant, Maggie McPhee, has evidently transplanted bits of another Thompson piece, "McGinty's Meal and Ale", into "Sheelicks." His compositions evidently entered tradition around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, as Greig collected them from informants over a wide area. "Sheelicks", by the way, are husked grain; a riddle is a sieve. - PJS
Cross references
- cf. "The Blythesome Bridal" (theme) and references there
References
- MacSeegTrav 109, "Sheelicks" (1 text, 1 tune)
- DT, MEALNAL2*
- Roud #2518
- BI, McCST109