The Cunning Cobbler
Sung by George Spicer (with chorus).
Recorded by Peter Kennedy at The Cherry Tree in Copthorne, Sussex, England, in 1956.
This is just a little story, but the truth I'm going to tell,It does concern a butcher who in Dover town did dwell.
Now, this butcher was possessed of a beautiful wife,
But the cobbler, he loved her as dearly as his life.
Singing: fol-tbe-riddle-i-do, fol-the-riddle-ay.
Now this butcher went to market for to buy an ox,
And then the little cobbler, sly as any fox,
He put on his Sunday coat and courtin' he did go;
To the jolly butcher's wife, because 'e loved her so.
Now when the little cobbler stepped
into the butcher's shop,
The butcher's wife knew what he meant
and bade him for to stop.
"O," says he, "Be my darling,
haw you got a job for me?"
The butcher's wife, so cunning,
says, "I'll go up and see."
Now she went to the bedroom door
and gave the snob a call,
"I have got an easy job,
if you have brought your awl,
And if you do it workmanlike,
some cash to you I'll pay."
"O thank you," said the cobbler
and began to stitch away.
But as the cobbler was at work,
a knock come on the door.
The cobbler scrambled out of bed
and laid upon the floor.
"O," said she, "me darling,
what will me husband say?"
But then she let the policeman in,
along with her to play.
But the butcher came from market
in the middle of the night.
The policeman scrambled out of bed
and soon got out of sight.
The butcher's wife so nimbly
locked the bedroom door,
But in her fright, she quite forgot
the cobbler on the floor.
But the butcher soon found out,
when he laid down in bed.
"Something here is very hard,"
the butcher smiled and said.
She says, "It is me rolling pin."
The butcher he did laugh,
"How came you for to roll your dough
with a policeman's staff?"
Now the butcher threw the truncheon
underneath the bed.
There he cracked the pepper pot
and hit the cobbler's head.
The cobbler cried out, "Murder!"
Said the butcher, "Who are you?"
"I am the little cobbler who goes mending ladies' shoes."
"If you are the little cobbler,
come along with me
I'll pay you for your mending,
before I've done with thee."
He put him in the bull pen — the bull began to roar.
The butcher laughed to see the bull
a-rolling o'er and o'er.
Now early in the morning just as people got about,
The butcher mopped his face with blood,
and then he turned him out.
He pinned a ticket to his back and on it was the news:
The cobbler to the bedroom goes mending ladies' shoes.
But the people all got frightened
when they saw the cobbler run;
His coat and breeches were so torn,
he clearly showed his bum.
He rushed up to his wife
and he kicked her on the floor,
Says he, "You brute, I'll never go a-mending any more."