Bonzer Words!: Spinning Wheel, Concertina And Harp
...The song came to me in the late nineteen forties from a lady who visited my grandmother from time to time. Originally of Limerick and later of Dublin and later still of Manchester, she knew many songs but always needed a bit of a gossip and a taste of the stout to kick-start her memory...
Dermott Ryder tells of a 19th Century Irish song which still journeys on.
John Francis Waller [1810-1894] man of law and letters—using the pseudonym Jonathan Freke Slingsby—contributed the Spinning Wheel, and several other verses, to the Dublin University Magazine during the early eighteen thirties. The Spinning Wheel quickly found an audience beyond that of the seething undergraduate rabble. It appears in several nineteenth century collections of popular songs of the common people. In many printings neither John Francis Waller nor his alter ego Jonathan Freke Slingsby manage to score a credit. That world-famous writer Anon usually got the guernsey.
The song came to me in the late nineteen forties from a lady who visited my grandmother from time to time. Originally of Limerick and later of Dublin and later still of Manchester, she knew many songs but always needed a bit of a gossip and a taste of the stout to kick-start her memory.
Her main topic of conversation was the mutual friends and acquaintances who had 'gone to their reward' since her last visit. My grandmother always listened patiently and made the appropriate catholic sounds, which usually included, saints preserve us, lord have mercy and may they rest in peace.
Their favourite tipple on these occasions was Oatmeal Stout 'fused' with a red-hot poker. In this case 'fused' is similar to mulled in intent but without the sugar and spices. Their process of fusing the stout was quite a simple one. First, build up the fire and push in the poker. When the poker becomes red hot then carefully extract it from the fire and insert the red-hot end into the stout loaded stone jug. Remove it when it cools and return it to the fire. Then pour the stout into glasses, consume and enjoy. Repeat this process as often as necessary. The term 'stone jug', meaning intoxicated may come from this tradition. In dire emergency, the fire failed or thirst took an early hand; it was permissible to consume 'un-fused' stout. Either way the concertina appeared or the singing started at about the third glass.
Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning.
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning
Bent over the fire her blind grandmother sitting
is crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting.
Eileen, a chara, I hear someone tapping,
it's the ivy dear mother against the glass flapping.
Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing,
it's the sound mother dear of the autumn winds dying.
Merrily cheerily noiselessly whirring, wings the wheel
spins the wheel while the foot's stirring.
Sprightly and lightly and airily ringing
trills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
What's the noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?
it's the little birds chirping, the holly bush under.
What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on?
and singing all wrong the old song of the "Coolin"?
There's a form at the casement, the form of her true love
and he whispers with face bent, I'm waiting for you love.
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly
and we'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly.
The maid shakes her head, on her lips lays her fingers
Steps up from the stool, longs to go and yet lingers
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother
Puts her foot on the stool spins the wheel with the other
Lazily, easily, now swings the wheel round
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid steps, then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower and slower and slower the wheel swings.
Lower and lower and lower the reel rings.
Ere the reel and the wheel stopped their ringing and moving,
through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.
In time, sadly, both the ladies joined their friends on the other side. I don't know what happened to the concertina. It's possible father's hope that both ladies went to heaven but that the 'bloody' concertina went to hell may have found favour with him upstairs. However, I am happy to report that the song journeys on. The avid collector will find it on LP record and on compact disc. Internet websites offer MP3 downloads. Had you attended a recent Screw Soapers Guild musical evening you would have heard it performed live by a delightful young lady from Galway—no concertina though, just a Celtic harp, made in Australia.
© Dermott Ryder
