The Honest Labourer also known as The Jolly Thresher, Poor Man, Poor Man or The Nobleman and the Thresher is a traditional English Folk ballad (
Roud
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...
#19),
which tells the story of a meeting between a poor labourer and a wealthy noble.
Synopsis
A rich man meets a poor labourer and asks him how he manages to feed his wife and his large family. The labourer explains that he and his wife work very hard, waste nothing and never fight. But, despite this, they still find time to play with their children and show them the love they need. The wealthy man is very impressed and gives the poor man a significant amount of land to make his life easier. Overjoyed, the labourer declares that he hopes that such generosity is rewarded heaven.
Commentary
Some
broadside versions of the ballad date from the 17th century.
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...
came across this song, titled ''The Poor Thresher'', and, with
James Johnson, had it printed in ''
Scots Musical Museum
The ''Scots Musical Museum'' was an influential collection of traditional folk music of Scotland published from 1787 to 1803. While it was not the first collection of Scottish folk songs and music, the six volumes with 100 songs in each collected ...
'' in 1792. The original manuscript with 16 verses written in Burn's own hand is in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
together with a note to his editor describing it as 'very pretty, and never that I know of was printed before'. Other versions have subsequently been published in a number of collections (in particular, i
''Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England''by
; in ''English County Songs'' by
L. Broadwood (1893)), although the tunes vary considerably.
The different versions of the song that have been collected from all over Britain, Ireland and North America.
Recordings
The
Copper Family recorded the song as ''The Honest Labourer'', which is available on ''Come Write Me Down''
References
External links
Tune & Lyrics for The Nobleman and the Thresher
{{DEFAULTSORT:Honest Labourer, The
Traditional ballads
English folk songs