1 Aw come now, I’ll sing you a song, ’Tis a song of right merry intent, Concerning a silly old man Who went for to pay his rent. 2 And as this here silly old man Was riding along the lane, A gentleman-thief overtook him, Saying, Well overtaken, old man! 3 ‘What, well overtaken, do’y say?’ ‘Yes, well overtaken,’ quoth he; ‘No, no,’ said the silly old man, ‘I don’t want thy company.’ 8^{2-4} ‘Why, badly the thief would be sped, For the money I carry about me In the quilt o my saddle is hid.’ 19, 20 Aw, when to his home he were come, His daughter he dressd like a duchess, And his ol woman kicked and she capered for joy, And at Christmas danced jigs on her crutches. =f.= _Resembles_ =d=, =e= _in the passages cited_. FOOTNOTES: [98] Also among the garlands collected by J. Bell, Newcastle, British Museum: the first, 11621. c. 2 (36), and 4 (13); the other, c. 2 (70). The garlands in 4 were printed, according to Bell, by J. White, †1769, or by T. Saint, †1788. [99] Douce Ballads, III, fol. 78 b., London, Printed and sold at Sympson’s Warehouse, in Stonecutter-Street, Fleet-Market. 284 JOHN DORY Ravenscroft’s Deuteromelia, London, 1609; No 1 of Freemen’s Songs, sig. B. John Dory goes to Paris and offers King John, in return for a pardon asked for himself and his men, to bring the French king all the churls in England in bonds. Nicholl, a Cornish man, fits out a good bark, has an encounter with John Dory, and after a smart fight takes him prisoner. This ballad had a remarkable popularity in the seventeenth century, as is evinced by the numerous cases of its being cited which Chappell has collected, Popular Music, p. 67 f.[100] As to the history of the transactions set forth in the ballad, I am not aware that anything has been added to the account given by Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, 1602, p. 135, which Ritson has quoted in the second edition of his Ancient Songs, II, 57, an account which is likely to have been taken from the ballad, with the specification from tradition that Nicholl was “son to a widow near Foy.” “Moreover, the prowess of one Nicholas, son to a widow near Foy, is descanted upon in an old three-man’s song, namely, how he fought bravely at sea with John Dory (a Genowey, as I conjecture), set forth by John, the French king, and, after much bloodshed on both sides, took, and slew him, in revenge of the great ravine and cruelty which he had fore committed upon the Englishmen’s goods and bodies.” (Page 316 of the edition of 1813.) The king in the ballad would be John II, the Good, who was taken prisoner at Poitiers, and died in 1364. No John Doria is mentioned as being in his service. 1 As it fell on a holy-day, And vpon an holy-tide-a, Iohn Dory bought him an ambling nag, To Paris for to ride-a.