As we rowed out to Fenario

[helen99]

I was listening to this song just now - It seems that "Sweet William" had a bit of a problem with rejection, to his eventual detriment. For some reason this version seemed hillarious when I heard it.
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As we rowed out to Fennario
As we rowed out to Fennario
Our captain fell in love
With a lady like a dove
And he called her by name Pretty Peggy-O.

Oh will you marry me Pretty Peggy-O
Oh will you marry me Pretty Peggy-O
Oh will you marry me
And I'll take you out to sea
To lands far beyond Fennario.

Oh I would marry you Sweet William-O
Oh I would marry you Sweet William-O
Oh I would marry you
But your guineas are too few
And I fear that my mama would be angry-O.

If ever I return Pretty Peggy-O
If ever I return Pretty Peggy-O
If ever I return
All your cities I will burn
Destroying all the lands in the area-o.

Come tripping down the stairs Pretty Peggy-O
Come tripping down the stairs Pretty Peggy-O
Come tripping down the stairs
combing back your yellow hair
The fairest young maid in Fennario.

Sweet William is dead Pretty Peggy-O
Sweet William is dead Pretty Peggy-O
Sweet William is dead
To the fishes he's been fed
In a sea far beyond Fennario.

As we rowed out to Fennario
As we rowed out to Fennario
Our captain fell in love
With a lady like a dove
And he called her by name Pretty Peggy-O.
And he called her by name Pretty Peggy-O.

Comments

[helen99.livejournal.com]

What I want to know is, Who the hell is "Margaret"??

Peggy is a diminutive form of Margaret, so it's all about the same girl. William III was married to someone named Mary, not Margaret. I'll bet she knew about Margaret, though. He died childless, so perhaps that's why...

I sense that High Drama must have taken place. Wow. I could concoct a whole story about this.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Dag Nabbit. I did a search and came up with this link:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/atoc/campbel-b.html
which says that the mistress of William III was named Elizabeth. Not Margaret. Back to the drawing board. Anyway, "Barbara" isn't "Margaret". But they both have the sound AR-AR in the name, so it may as well be. Maybe that's a code word for Aar-Aar, as in pirates.

Maybe it has to do with "It starts with an A, Aardvark, Aardvark". Then again, maybe not...

shhh

[silenti77.livejournal.com]

...you've stumbled upon the path to the Aardvarkian mysteries!

(stumbling is indeed the usually method of locomotion for Aardvarkian pirate crews)

May the Aardvark guide you in your quest.

(if you comment to yourself enough, eventually it all leads to Aardvark...especially if you start with an "A"...)

Re: shhh

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Perhaps William failed to offer the aardvark this recipe for dinner, which was why he was rejected:

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/meat/ants.html

Or maybe William tried to eat some ants so the aardvark would think he was cool, and died due to his well-known formic acid allergy. I'll continue to research the subject, but chances Aar, we'll never know.