Digital Tradition Mirror

Paddy on the Railway

Paddy on the Railway

     Paddy on the railway
     Pickin up stanes;
     Alang cam an engine
     And brak Paddy's banes.

     "O!" said Paddy,
     "That's no fair."
     "O!" said the engineman,
     "Ye shudna hae been there."
     ________________________________________________________

     SC (1948), 121 (no. 198), from Glasgow, and very similar in
     Those Dusty Bluebells (1965),7, a skipping rhyme from
     Cumnock.  Gullen (1950), 17 (no. 40, among countings-out),
     has "by came an engine", "`Well,' said the engine-
     driver, `you shouldn't be there.'"  Note says "An older
     user of this rhyme protests that it was the engine that
     spoke"--as in Rodger, Lang Strang (1948), 11 [at the
     railway/ "Weel,"  said the engine, "you've no business
     there"].  A Dublin version: Behan Streets of Song no. 9.
MS

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!