Annotation:We've Cheated the Parson (1)

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WE'VE CHEATED THE PARSON. English, Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "We Cheated the Parson" is also called "Your Hay it is Mow'd" or "Harvest Song" and was a favorite melody from King Arthur, set by English composer Henry Purcell in 1691 to a libretto by John Dryden. It appeared printed on broadside sheets soon afterward ("A New Playhouse song of the husband's delight, suiting the humours of a country Life") and was the vehicle for songs in ballad operas, such as Air XLVI in John Gay's ballad opera Polly (1729). Dryden's words go:

Your hay it is mow'd, and your corn is reap'd;
Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap'd.
Come, boys, come; Come, boys, come;
And merrily roar out our harvest home.

We've cheated the parson, we'll cheat him again,
For why should a blockhead have one in ten?
One in ten, one in ten,
For why should a blockhead have one in ten?

For prating so long like a book-learn'd sot
Till pudding and dumpling are burn'd to pot
Burn't to sot, burn't to pot
Till pudding and dumpling are burn'd to pot
Till pudding and dumpling are burn'd to pot

We'll toss off our ale till we cannot stand
And hey for the honour of old England
Old England, old England
And hey for the honour of old England

There are two 6/4 or 6/8 melodies called "We've Cheated the Parson." One was printed by Henry Playford in Apollo's Banquet: The Second Book in 1691 and appears in numerous ballad operas such as Jovial Crew (1731), Lovers Opera (1730), Merry Cobler (1735), Mock Doctor (1732) and Old Man (1735). A second, different, melody was printed in John Gay's Polly (1729), reprinted in dancing master Thomas Wilson's Companion to the Ball Room (1816).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Wilson (A Companion to the Ball Room), London, 1816; p. 92 (this was the air used by Gay in Polly).

Recorded sources:

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