Chapter 28
DROYLSTON WAKES SONG Mr. Higgson in his History of Droylston gives the following account under the title of 3D Wheel. A singular wakes custom was introduced into Droylston about 1814 from wood houses near Failsworth where it had been prevalent for more than the third of a century.
Chambers in his Edinburgh Journal gives it a notice as does also Bell after Dixon under the title of the Greenside wakes song in his annotated edition of the English Poets. The ceremonial issued from Greenside a hamlet in Droylston and consisted of two male equestrians grotesquely habited. John John son of Robert Hume of Greenside personified a man, the other James son of
Aaron Etchells of Edge Lane a woman. They were engaged with spinning wheels, spinning flax in the olden style and conducting a rustic dialogue in limping verse after which they collected contributions from spectators. Latterly a cart was substituted for a saddle as being a safer position in case they grew Both Bell and Chambers translate the rhyme into
Gradely English and render 3D Wheel, Tread the Wheel, but it is evidently Thread the Wheel as will be seen by a perusal of the original idiomatic and more spirited version. He it's Droylston wakes and we come into town to tell you something a great renown and if this how jade'll let me begin I'll show you how hard and how fast I can spin so it's 3D Wheel, 3D Wheel, Dandondildo.
She thou brags of this hell but all done think it's true for all will up howdy thy thoughts aren't a few who when thou hast done and spun very hard of this all and we'll sure the work is ill mad so it's 3D Wheel, 3D Wheel, Dandondildo. He thou saws the owd jade thou'd best owd the tongue or else ows to be thump in the air it be long and if ought or do thou at sure for to roo rock and ammonia one as good
as you so it's 3D Wheel, 3D Wheel, Dandondildo. What is it to me who ye can have or shanna be long or I'm laid in me grave and when I tow I'm deed and have done what I can you may find one at all spin as odd as I've done so it's 3D Wheel, 3D Wheel, Dandondildo. He come come me dear wife or not have ye roo and this I will tell you and I'll tell you
true knew if you'll forgive me for what I've said or do me endeavour to please you instead so it's 3D Wheel, 3D Wheel, Dandondildo. She I'm glad for to hear at you when me forgive and I will do by you as long as I live so let us unite and live free for our sin and then we shall have now to think on but spin so it's 3D Wheel, 3D Wheel, Dandondildo.
Both. So now let's conclude and hear under Thor's song and hope it has pleased this humorous throng but if it has missed you needn't to fear we'll do our endeavour to please you next year so it's 3D Wheel, 3D Wheel, Dandondildo. Mr Higson informs us that this queer dialogue song which is sung to a somewhat plaintive
tune has been collected from various persons and collated with the version of one of the actors and singers, an elderly man who has often been dressed as the female and taken that part in the dialogue or duet. On one occasion her husband got so tipsy that he fell off his horse in the yard of Cinderland Hall and she had to extemporise and instruct another to take his part.
They each bore a small spinning wheel before them which was turned lustily during the chorus which may have been originally Speed the Wheel. Amongst the variations or interpolations sometimes heard is one that seems to indicate hemp or flax spinning at an early period. The tow that o'er spin is five shill in a pound and that you bun now be me wheel going
round so it's 3D Wheel etc. One brags to the other, o'er can o'er spin thee byth mass and the rejoinder seems to be o'er can o'er sing thee byth mass. Another piece of abuse is thou'd canketh I would beesum, o'er canna endure only lunger a temper like thine is I'm sure.
Altogether the ballad as it reaches us seems but the debris of an ancient dialogue song in which man and wife quarrel over the domestic manufacture of linen yarn. End of part 28
