Henry's Songbook

With Kitty I'll go for a ramble
Over the mountains wide
Where the blackbirds nest in the bramble
In a place where the eagle glides
All in some lonely valley
Where the birds in the evening nest
And me with my prayers would mingle
With the sun to hurry west

I'll buy the roughest of raiments
To last out the life of man
With my whiskers unkempt and unshaven
Till he reaches a mile in span
Like a ? of a grey mountain dweller
It'll rumple and jingle around
If I can't find a wife in the heather
I'll try in the low, low ground

Repeat 1

(as sung by Norma Waterson)

[1994:] Norma first heard [this] from the great Connemara singer Joe Heaney. He sang it in its usual form which alternates verses in Irish and English - and if the Irish words are as good as the English then they must be fabulous. (Martin Carthy, notes 'Waterson:Carthy')