Hunting with dogs and taking game is rightly frowned on in our modern world. The meat on the tables of those who eat it (I'm practically vegetarian these days) is killed humanely, if there's such a thing. The song though tells of a time when poaching was away of life for some folks and maybe kept them from starvation. The woods in the song were well known for poachers and I read somewhere in the 1860s (I think) there was a lot of trouble between the locals and the gamekeepers that resulted in musket fire and deportation to Australia. I think the three young lads were probably very lucky the magistrate let them free. We hear of the bond between the lad and his dog, the brutality of the hunt, of the keeper who shot the dog and of the revenge the lad would like to take. The butchers would have known the meat was illegal. The old lady who sold bad ale took the meat and turned them in because she didn't want to pay for it. Maybe the magistrate let them go with a promise? It tells a story and paints a picture of what life was like in the mid 19th century. Anne Briggs had a pretty good voice and was highly rated in the folks clubs with a promising career when she just gave it up and went to work in a factory. She never even told her kids she had been a singer, when one day her daughter found a record sleeve with her picture on it. Worth checking for anyone who likes a song to tell a good story.
Hunting with dogs and taking game is rightly frowned on in our modern world. The meat on the tables of those who eat it (I'm practically vegetarian these days) is killed humanely, if there's such a thing. The song though tells of a time when poaching was away of life for some folks and maybe kept them from starvation. The woods in the song were well known for poachers and I read somewhere in the 1860s (I think) there was a lot of trouble between the locals and the gamekeepers that resulted in musket fire and deportation to Australia. I think the three young lads were probably very lucky the magistrate let them free. We hear of the bond between the lad and his dog, the brutality of the hunt, of the keeper who shot the dog and of the revenge the lad would like to take. The butchers would have known the meat was illegal. The old lady who sold bad ale took the meat and turned them in because she didn't want to pay for it. Maybe the magistrate let them go with a promise? It tells a story and paints a picture of what life was like in the mid 19th century. Anne Briggs had a pretty good voice and was highly rated in the folks clubs with a promising career when she just gave it up and went to work in a factory. She never even told her kids she had been a singer, when one day her daughter found a record sleeve with her picture on it. Worth checking for anyone who likes a song to tell a good story.