WORD-LORE

The 'Folk' Magazine

London, England

April 1927

(pages 58-59)

NOTES QUERIES AND ANSWERS

Q. 63.—North Country Songs (I., 258).—Although I cannot supply the music of “Wuld Grummleton,” I am sending you the story told in the dialect of South Somerset, as translated by the late G. P. R. Pulman.

—W. G. Willis Watson

Wuld Grummleton

Wuld Grummleton was a most terrible Turk,

As I’ve a-yird people zay

He awar’d in an hour he’d do moore work

[ . . . . . . ]

But bustle about, and put all things ta rights,

An’ I’ll let thee alone to rule.”

There is a version of “Old Grumbleton,” apparently in the Somerset dialect, to be found in the New (Second) Edition of The Bentley Ballads,” apparently in the Somerset dialect, to be found in the New (Second) Edition of The Bentley Ballads (London, 1866). The ballad is in neither the First nor the Third Edition.—Victor B. Neuburg.