TOM BAWCOCK'S. English, (6/8 time). England, Cornwall. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. Tom Bawcock's Eve is an annual festival, held on 23 December, in Mousehole, Cornwall, England. The festival commemorates the efforts of legendary Mousehole resident Tom Bawcock to lift a famine from the village by going out to fish in a severe storm. Folk legend goes that Bawcock decided to get into his fishing boat, brave the storms and eventually catch enough fish to feed the whole of Mousehole. It’s then believed that the whole catch was baked into a pie which contained as many as seven different types of fish. The heads were poked through the pastry to prove and celebrate that there was actually fish inside. There is also a folk music tradition linked to the Eve, with the words written by Robert Morton Nance in 1927 to a traditional local tune called the 'Wedding March'.
Mousehole, Cornwall, by Staniland Pugh
Merry plaas you may believe woz Mowsel pon Tom Bawcock's Eve. To be theer then oo wudn wesh To sup o sibm soorts o fesh! Wen morgee brath ad cleard tha path Comed lances for a fry, An then us had a bet o scad an starry gazee py. Nex cumd fermaads, braa thustee jaads As maad ar oozles dry, An ling an haak, enough to maak a raunen shark to sy! A aech wed clunk as ealth wer drunk En bumpers bremmen y, An wen up caam Tom Bawcock's naam We praesed un to tha sky
Additional notes
Source for notated version: -
Printed sources : - Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, Old Cornwall, no. 5, April, 1927.
