Bluegrass Messengers

Quaker's Courtship- Hubbell (NY) 1901 Moncure

[From the Album FH5311 (Folksongs of the Catskills) dated 1963 by Folkways Records by Moncure and Siemsen. Sung by Barbara Moncure.

R. Matteson 2017]

SIDE II, Band 4: THE QUAKER'S COURTSHIP

From Mrs. Carl Hubbell of Woodstock who learned the song when she was a very young girl from a summer visitor to the Catskills at the turn of the century. This widely-known play-party song is the only one in the present collection to be found in the Stevens-Douglass manuscript of songs of western New York (1841-1856) I and published in A Pioneer Songster, edited by Harold W. Thompson and Edith E. Cutting (Ithaca, 1958).

Father sent me here a- courting,
Hum ho bay:
I'm in earnest, not a joking,
Hum ho bay:

You set there and court the fire,
Teedling, teedl.ing, teedling tine:
 That you go is my desire,
 Teedling teedling teedling tine:
 
I've a ring and forty shillin',
 Hum ho bay:
Thou mayst have I thou art willing,
 Hum ho hay:

I don't want your rings or money,
 Teedling, etc.
I want a man to call me honey,
Teedl1ng etc.

Maiden, thou art fair and slender,
Hum etc.
And I know thy heart is tender:
Hum

Now I know thou art a flatt' rer,
Teedling
And I'll never wed a Quaker
Teedling

Must I then change my religion!
Hum
And become a Presbyterian!
 Hum

Cheer up, cheer up, loving brother:
Teedling
Can't catch one fish, catch another,
Teedling

Must I go without a token!
Hum
And my heart it's well nigh broken:
Hum

You go home and tell your father,
Teedling
That I'll never never wed thee,
Teedling teedl1ng teedling tine.