The Beggar Man- Courage (NL) 1930 Karpeles B
[From Folk Songs from Newfoundland; Karpeles B version, additional text from collector's MS, see Bronson No. 2. According to Bronson "The Nova Scotia [Creighton] variant (listed a above), with a longer text (13 stanzas), is melodically almost identical with the present copy."
R. Matteson 2014]
"The Beggar Man"- Karpeles, 1934, II, pp. 99- 103. Sung by Jacob Courage, Frenchman's Cove, Garnish, Fortune Bay, Newfoundland, July 15, 1930; text from Collector's MS.
1. On board of a ship and away sailed he,
He sailed right away to a far countrie.
He looked at the ring, it was pale and dim;
That showed that his love was false to him.
2. You put on my driving suit,
And I'll put on your begging rig.
Your driving suit it won't fit me,
My begging suit it won't fit thee.
3. Let it be right or let it be wrong,
The begging suit I will Put on.
When he came to Napoleon's gate,
He lay on his staff in a weary state.
4. He saw his true love come skipping downstairs,
Rings on her fingers, gold in her hair,
And in her hand a glass of wine,
To treat this little old beggar man.
5. He drink-ed and he drink-ed and he drink-ed so free,
Into the tumbler the ring slipped he,
Did you get it by the land, or did you gel it by the sea,
Or did you get it from a drowned man's hand?
6. I neither got it from land, I neither got it from sea,
Nor neither did I get it from a drowned man's hand.
But I got it from i true love was courting me so gay,
And n6w I return it on her wedding day.
7. Then rings from her fingers she then pulled off
And gold from her hair it all fell off,
Saying: I'll follow my true love for ever, ever more,
And beg my bread from door to door.
8. Between the kitchen and the hall
The beggar man's suit he then let fall;
He showed the best and the first of them all,
He was the best little man in the hall.