A.L. Lloyd collected songs, and also created them. He adapted texts from broadsides, chapbooks, motifs and fragments and fitted them with tunes, and moulded them seamlessly into gems which he passed back into the tradition. From him comes Three Drunken Maidens.
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There were three drunken maidens
Come from the Isle of Wight
They drank from Monday morning
Nor stopped till Saturday night
When Saturday night did come, my boys
They wouldn't then go out
And these three drunken maidens
They pushed the jug about.
Then in comes bouncing Sally
Her cheeks as red as a bloom
Move up, my jolly sisters
And give young Sally some room
For I'll be your equal
Before the night is out
And these four drunken maidens
They pushed the jug about.
There's woodcock and pheasant
There's partridge and hare
There's all sorts of dainties
No scarcity was there
There's forty quarts of beer, my boys,
They fairly drunk them out
And these four drunken maidens
They pushed the jug about.
Then in comes the landlord
He's asking for his pay
There's a a forty pound bill, my boys
These girls have got to pay
That's ten pounds apiece, my boys
But still they wouldn't go out
And these four drunken maidens,
They pushed the jug about.
Oh, where are your feathered hats,
Your mantles rich and fine?
They've all been swallowed up, my lads
In tankards of good wine
And where are your maidenheads,
You maidens brisk and gay?
We left them in the alehouse
We drank them clean away.
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