Digital Tradition Mirror

Navvy Boots (2)

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Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Navvy Boots (2)

I'm a bold English navvy that fought on the line
The first place I met was Newcastle-on-Tyne
I being tired, sick, and weary of working all day
To a cot down by the hillside I'm making my way

(A digging and a-picking as I was one day
The thought of my true love it led me astray.
The day it was gone and the night coming on
And I hit for the road with my navvy boots on.)

Oh I first had me supper and then had a shave
For courtin' this fair maid I highly prepared
Th'ould stars in the sky as the moon it shown down
And I hit for the road with my navvy boots on

I knocked at my love's window: my knock she did know
And out of her slumber she wakened so slow
I knocked there again and she said, "Is that John?"
And I quickly replied, "With me navvy boots on"

Oh she opened the window and then let me in
'Twas into her bedroom she planted me then
Th'ould night being cold and the blankets rolled on
So I slipped into bed with my navvy boots on

Oh then early next morning at the dawn of the day
Said I to my true love, "It's time to go away"
"Sleep down, sleep down, you know you've done wrong
Sure the child will be born with his navvy boots on"

Oh he bent down his head with a laugh and a smile
Saying, "What could I do love in that little while
And I know if I done it, I done it in fun
And I'll do it again with my navvy boots on"

Oh then six months being over and seven at the last
When this pretty fair maid grew stout round the waist
For eight months being over when nine comes along
And she handed him a young son with his navvy boots on

"Oh come all you pretty fair maids, take a warning," she said
"Don't ever leave a navvy get into your bed
For when he'll get warm and think upon you
Sure he'll jump on your bones with his navvy boots on."

Printed in Peter Kennedy Folksongs of Britain and Ireland
Recorded by the Irish Rovers
second verse from Sedgwick RG
SOF

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!