1. Synopsis
    "Hares on the Mountain"  "Knife in the Window"  "Crawling and Creeping" 

2. Early versions
    Broadsides and early printed versions  Versions collected from traditional singers 

3. Recordings
    Field recordings  Recordings by revival singers and groups  Other notable recordings 

4. Discussion

5. References

"Hares on the Mountain" (Roud 329) (otherwise titled "Blackbirds and Thrushes", "If All the Young Women", "Nancy Lay Sleeping", "The Knife in the Window", "Shepherd So Bold", "Sally My Dear", "Lightning and Thunder", "Crawling and Creeping" and "Ain't Gonna Do It No More") is an English folk song. Versions of this song have been collected from traditional singers in England, Canada and the USA, and have been recorded by modern folk artists.^[1]

Synopsis

This song is composed of two distinct parts, "Hares on the Mountain" and "The Knife in the Window", both of which have been collected as distinct songs. It may be that it started life as two different songs which were amalgamated by singers. A third theme, "Crawling and Creeping", apparently an adaptation of the "Knife in the Window" motif, occurs in the American tradition.

"Hares on the Mountain"

In this theme the singer imagines what would happen if young maidens (or in some cases young men) were transformed into various creatures or plants, and describes the response of the opposite gender:

How many young men would hide in the bushes?

Sing fal-de-ral, tal de ral, fal-de-ral-day.^[2]

"If all those young men were as rushes a growing,

Then all those pretty maidens will get scythes go mowing".^[3]}}

The imagined transformations include hares on the mountain, sheep in the meadow, reeds a'growin, and others. One more modern version goes:

And I was a hare, I would teach them bad habits".^[4]}}

There is a nonsense refrain which varies from singer to singer.

"Knife in the Window"

This section starts as a dialogue between two young lovers, demonstrating his incompetence and her initial caution and subsequent willingness (if somewhat blunt at times):

'Oh, now' she replied, you must put your knee to it.'

Sing fol-de-rol-i-do, sing fol-de-rol-day.}}

Most versions involve him cutting knots (at her instigation) in either his breeches or her "small things", hence the title:

'Oh, now' she replied, 'there's a knife in the window'."

Sing fol-de-rol-i-do, sing fol-de-rol-day.^[5]}}

The song usually ends with the couple in bed together:

I'll leave you to guess how this young couple fumbled

To me whack fol the diddle di do, to me whack fol the diddle day}}

though one version, collected in Virginia from Asa Martin and titled "Lightning and Thunder", ends with the birth of a baby:

And then they went at it like lightnin' and thunder.

Sing fol-de-rol-day.

Well the babe it was born and they did all wonder [sung three times]

That it hadn't a-been killed by lightnin' and thunder.

Sing fol-de-rol-day.^[6]}}

A number of more explicit versions of this song have been collected under the title "Roll Your Leg Over".^[7]

"Crawling and Creeping"

In this reworking of more risque versions of the song like "Roll Your Leg Over me" the narrator dreams that he "went a-crawling and a-creeping And I crawled in the room where my baby was sleeping". She wakes up and screams, he is arrested and sentenced to nine months in jail. Each verse ends in the phrase "And I never want to do it again." or something similar. The song ends with a warning:

Don't never get the habit of crawling and creeping

And going in the room where your baby is sleeping

You'll never want to do it again^[8]}}

Early versions

Broadsides and early printed versions

A tune for the song was published under the name in The Complete Collection of Irish Music by George Petrie, published in London in 1902, under the title "If All the Young Maidens were Blackbirds and Trushes" (sic).^[9] No chap book or broadsides have come to light containing verses from either the "Hares on the Mountain" or the "Knife in the Window".^[2]

Versions collected from traditional singers

The Roud Folk Song Index includes 27 versions collected from English singers. These are mainly from Southern England and East Anglia, with a single version from Yorkshire. The index lists 13 distinct versions from the United States, of which seven are of the "Crawling and Creeping" type and three seem to be of each of the other motifs. There are two Canadian versions, both of the "Knife in the Window" type.^[1] (It isn't always possible to distinguish the types of this group of songs as some versions combine elements of the "Hares on the Mountain" and "Knife in the Window" types and collectors may use the same title for all examples they collect.)

Recordings

Field recordings

A Yorkshire version recorded by Steve Gardham and sung by Dorothy Bavey^[10] and a Somerset version recorded by Bob Patten and sung by Charlie Showers^[11] are in the British Library Sound Archive.

Other recorded versions by traditional singers include a striking rendition of "Hares on the Mountain" by Northamptonshire singer Jeff Wesley^[12] and a version of "Knife in the Window" by Suffolk singer Harry List.^[13]

Recordings by revival singers and groups

Many revival singers have covered this song, They include Shirley Collins and Davey Graham,^[14] Steeleye Span,^[15] Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker^[16] and Frankie Armstrong.^[17] Chris Wood has recorded a beautiful reworking of the "Hares on the Mountain" motif with Andy Cutting.^[18][19] Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell also recorded an amended version on their six-track EP The North Farm Sessions, released in 2010.

The Local Honeys, Linda Jean Stokley and Montana Hobbs, recorded a version at SomerSessions in Kentucky in 2016.^[20]

Other notable recordings

The English indie rock trio Alt-J recorded a variation of Hares on the Mountain for the soundtrack of the 2017 movie Bright.^[21]

Discussion

According to the folk song collector John Howson, the song "is sometimes attributed to Samuel Lover (1797–1865), who included it in his novel Rory o’ More published in 1837. However, it probably predates Lover's book...."^[12]

However, Steve Roud and Julia Bishop argue that "To confuse the magical transformations in this ballad to the similes of our song, and to assume that one necessarily derives from the other, requires a giant leap of faith, backed by nothing more than the coincidence of hares, fishes, and so on."^[2] In the sleeve notes to her CD "Till the Grass O'ergrew the Corn" (1997) Frankie Armstrong comments "It is widely accepted that this song is derived from the rare ballad "The Two Magicians" (Child #44), although the conceit is surely obvious enough to have been independently invented and all traces of magic (and story) have disappeared, leaving us with a genial day-dream of lyric."^[23]

References

• Orange Township, Adams County, North Dakota
• Orange Township, Black Hawk County, Iowa
• Orange Township, Carroll County, OH
• Orange Township, Clinton County, Iowa
• Orange Township, Delaware County, OH
• Orange Township (disambiguation)
• Orange Township, Essex County, New Jersey
• Orange Township, Kalkaska County, Michigan
• Orange Township, Kalkaska, Michigan
• Orange Township, Meigs County, OH
• Orange Township, Minnesota
• Orange Township, New Jersey
• Orange Township, Ohio (disambiguation)
• Orange Township, Pennsylvania
• Orange Township, Shelby County, OH
• Orange Town Station
• Orangetree
• Orange Trophy
• Orange Tundra
• Orange Tunisia
• Orange TV
• Orange (TV channel)
• Orange Twin Field Works
• Orange Uganda
• Orange Underwing