Note Note — No 43 THE GREEN BUSHES

43. The Green Bushes. Words and melody taken down from Robert Hard. Another sent me by Mr. Crossing, heard by him on Dartmoor from a labouring man in 1869. The same as this taken down from James Parsons. This latter sent by me to Miss Broadwood, who has published it in her "County Songs," p. 170. In Buckstone's play of "The Green Bushes," 1845, Nelly O'Neil sings snatches of this song, one verse, "I'll buy you fine petticoats," etc., in Act I., and that and the following verse in Act III. Nowhere is the complete ballad given. That, however, owing to the popularity of the drama, was published soon after as a "popular Irish ballad sung by Mrs. FitzWilliam." Later it was attributed to the husband of that lady, Mr. E.F. FitzWilliam, but it was not published in his lifetime. The words are substantially old, in this form are a softening down of an earlier ballad which has its analogue in Scotland, "My daddie is a cankered carle," each verse of which ends—