> Folk Music > Songs > Hunting the Hare
Hunting the Hare
[
Roud 1181
; Ballad Index BeCo437
; VWML SBG/3/2/8
, CJS2/10/774
; Bodleian
Roud 1181
; Welsh trad., English words A.P. Graves]
Geoff and Pennie Harris sang Hare Hunting in 1975 on the Trailer album of the season, Maypoles to Mistletoe. The tune is the traditional Welsh Hela'r Ysgyfarnog and the English words are from A.P. Graves' The Celtic Song Book (1928). The dogs' role-call reminds me a bit of Dido Bendigo.
Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts sang Hunting the Hare in 1995 on their eponymous album, Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts. This video shows them at the Albert Hole, Bristol, on 10 June 1994:
Jon Boden sang Hunting the Hare as the 10 October 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He commented in the blog:
I absolutely loved the Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts album. I got it in my second year at uni and drove my housemates mad with it. Strangely I never learnt anything from it (although I was already singing Suzanne Vega’s Soldier & the Queen—should I record that for this thinking about it…?), but finally got round to learning this a few months ago.
Barry Lister sang a completely different Hunting the Hare with The Claque (he, Dave Lowry, Sean O'Shea, and Tom Addison) in 2006 on his CD Ghosts & Greasepaint. He noted:
Dave Lowry extracted this many years ago in the 1970s from the Baring-Gould manuscripts [A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes]. It was collected in the 1890s from Mr Nankivel (known as Old Capul) at Merrivale Bridge. Baring-Gould's assistant, Mr Bussell, thought that the tune was a 17th Century dance tune.
Martin and Shan Graebe sang Hunting the Hare and Adam the Poacher in 2008 on their WildGoose CD Dusty Diamonds. They noted:
SB-G Manuscript Ref. P3, 47 (420). Two songs about mistreating hares. Actually, we rather like hares and there is no way we would say “go out and do it”, but these are magnificent tunes. […] Hunting the Hare was included in Robert Bell’s Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England (1857). Though Baring-Gould did collect a version of the song in Devon [VWML SBG/3/2/8] , we liked this tune which was sent to him in 1899 having been taken down from an old man (un-named) at St. Genys in Cornwall.
Tom and Barbara Brown sang The Hunting the Hare in 2014 on their WildGoose CD of songs collected by Cecil Sharp from Captains Lewis and Vickery by in Minehead, Somerset, Just Another Day. They noted:
There are a few versions of this classic hare-hunting song; Martin and Shan Graebe recorded one collected by Sabine Baring-Gould on their Dusty Diamonds CD, and we’ve even seen it in print as Somersetshire Hunting Song. This is Vickery’s version [VWML CJS2/10/774] —with more hunting-song clichés than you could throw a drag at. Tom sees no purpose in hare hunting—but then he is bald!
Lyrics
Hunting the Hare (Hela'r Ysgyfarnog) | Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts sing Hunting the Hare |
---|---|
O the yelping of hounds, the skelping, |
Well, all the yelping of hounds, the skelping, |
Now they've lost him and now they're finding him, |
Well, now they're losing him, now they're finding him, |
Bay and grey are away to the stable, |
Then Brayer and Stayer are away to the stable, |
The Claque sing Hunting the Hare
I hunted my Merry all into the hay,
The Hare was afore and the hounds were away!
Chorus (after each verse):
With my Hickerly Tout, ticklesome Trout,
Hipperly, tipperly, eversheen, nipperly,
Up the middle, vandigo-van.
And it's up the hill, down the form,
Here a step, there a turn,
Turn and sing merrily,
Hunt hounds, away!
I hunted my Merry all into the barley,
There the poor puss was pursued by old Snarley.
I hunted my Merry all into the wheat,
There the sly puss did attempt us to cheat.
I hunted my Merry all into the oats
There I cut off both his paw and his scutt.
I hunted my Merry all into the rye,
There the poor puss was constrained to die.
Tom and Barbara Brown sing Hunting of the Hare
What joys can compare with the hunting of the hare
In the morning, boys, in the morning, boys,
In the sweet and the pleasant weather?
Chorus (after each verse):
When the bugle horn does sound,
We’ve got sport all on the ground,
Ran-tan-tero, huzzah, ran-tan-tero, huzzah,
Ran-tan-tero, my boys, we’ll follow.
And when poor puss arise then away from us she flies,
And we’ll give her, boys, and we’ll give her, boys,
One thundering and loud holler.
And when poor puss is killed, we’ll retire from the field,
And we’ll count, boys, and we’ll count, boys,
On the same good run tomorrow.
So what joys can compare with the hunting of the hare
In the morning, boys, in the morning, boys,
In the sweet and the pleasant weather?
Links
See also the Mudcat Café thread Lyr Add: Hunting the Hare.