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The Maid and the Magpie

[ Roud 1532 ; Master title: The Maid and the Magpie ; Ballad Index MA044 ; Wiltshire 37 ; Mudcat 107846 ; trad.]

Cyril Poacher sang The Maid and the Magpie at The Ship Inn in Blaxhall, Suffolk in a recoeding made by Neil Lanham in 1964 or 1965; it was included in c.2000 on the Helions Bumpstead Gramophone CD Songs From the Idiom of the People of Blaxhall (Voice of Suffolk Vol. 10). In 1974 he sang it at his home in Grove Farm, Blaxhall, Suffolk to Tony Engle and Keith Summers. This recording was released a year later on Poacher’s Topic album of traditional songs from Suffolk, The Broomfield Wager. This track was also included in 1998 on the Topic anthology of ballads of true and false lovers, Tonight I’ll Make You My Bride. (The Voice of the People Volume 6). Another recording of The Maid and the Magpie made by Ginette Dunn in his home on 3 October 1974 was included in 2004 on Cyril Poacher’s Musical Traditions anthology Plenty of Thyme. A fourth recording made by Keith Summers at The Ship Inn in 1974 was included in 2007 on the Musical Traditions anthology of Keith Summers’ Suffolk recordings A Story to Tell. Rod Stradling noted in the MT booklet:

Talking birds abound in classical mythology. The present song, however, concerns a rather more down-to-earth magpie which, like the parrot in the ballad of The Outlandish Knight, is privy to its mistress’s dark secrets. Unlike the parrot it is not bribed with promises of an ivory and gold cage—and so promptly spills the beans in court. Suggestions that the magpie may simply be the rationalisation of an older and more magical creature seems, to me, to be nothing more than a wish to reinvent old mythologies. In its present form The Maid and the Magpie was printed in the 1860s by at least two well-known broadside merchants and it’s likely that Aldeman Ling’s father, John (born 1823), from whom Cyril says he learned the song, had his version from one of these sheets.

It is not a common song—Alfred Williams collected a version in Berkshire, and another was found in Sydney, Australia, sung by one Jack ‘Hoopiron’ Lee. There was also another ‘magpie’ song around at a similar time.

Jim Eldon sang The Maid and the Magpie on his 1987 album The Brid Fiddler. He noted:

The Maid and the Magpie was published on a broadsheet by Forth Printers of Hull. I learnt the tune from a recording of Cyril Poacher of Blaxhall, Suffolk, and filled out the story from the Forth broadsheet (Wilberforce House Collection).

Mossy Christian and Megan Wisdom sang The Maid and the Magpie on their 2022 EP Live Sampler.

Lyrics

Cyril Poacher sings The Maid and the Magpie

Once there was a maid kept an old magpie,
The parson who prayed livèd very close by,
And when she met the parson, they both stopped to talk
And often on the quiet they would go for a cosy walk.

For her lover was a sailor; he crossed the raging main,
He promised she would be his bride when he returned again,
But still she let the parson see her home from church,
Kissing and never thinking of the magpie on the perch.

Chorus:
So the maid and the magpie would talk all the day,
The maid would not believe all the magpie did say.
She said, “I love the parson. Don’t you tell the tar.”
And the old magpie only said, “Qua, qua.”

Now when stationed at Gib-a-raltar, the sailor, so it seems,
Whilst he was sleeping in his bunk, he had a funny dream.
He dreamt the girl he’d left behind on dear old England’s shore,
Whilst he was away she was flirting with a half-a-dozen more.

So he made his passage homeward as quickly as could be.
He landed safely at her house, but no maiden could he see.
When talking to the magpie who was dancing on the perch,
And the magpie told him all about the parson at the church.

(Chorus)

For he then went for the parson, and unfor him did search.
He found which way the wind blew, so he hooked him from the church.
They brought the magpie into court, who told a truthful tale.
And to get what he required, of course, this maiden she did fail.

(Chorus)

Now when the sailor met this maid, he passed her with disdain.
She sued a breach of promise for five thousand to obtain.
The lawyer could not find it out, so the case went on the shelf,
And the tricky little maiden had to live all by herself.

(Chorus)