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The Brown Hare of Whitebrook

from The Poacher's Fate by Laura Smyth & Ted Kemp

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about

The dialect poet Ammon Wrigley wrote this song drawing on the local landscape of his native Saddleworth - the Yorkshire parish with Lancashire people. A number of his songs entered the aural tradition and are still being sung today. We first heard this being sung by Cuthbert Noble and subsequently learned the song from the Leader recording of the Holme Valley Beagles.

lyrics

Going down the dale by Alphin they heard John Andrew's horn
And every lad worth rearing was hunting bread and born
The squire and the poor man, hand in hand went they
And the life was worth the living in old John Andrew's day

In Whitebrook fields by Alderman a brown hare was bread
That oft' o'er top of Board Hill the Friezland hounds had led
But on a hunting morning he wound his horn and swore
That the brown hare of Whitebrook will double back no more
To mi fol de rol de day, to mi fol de rol de day

There never came from heaven a fairer questing morn
The white mist lay on Wharmton like the blossom on the thorn
But the fairest sight of all, the glory of the scene
Were those merry lads from Greenfield in their hunting red and green

She sat that morn at Tunstead beneath a white thorn tree
Of all the hares in Saddleworth the bonniest was she
The spirit of the moorwind was in her bounding leap
And the love of every hunter went with her up the steep

They brought the famous Bounty, the pride of Bockin Hall
The fleetest hound in all the land to bring about her fall
They gave her "view halloa" when they saw her break away
Like a sunbeam through a gap-hole the Whipper-in did say

They took the fields to Brockley and o'r the heather height
She caught the rising moorcock and matched him in his flight
Fleet Bounty swept the bracken like a russle of the wind
But the brown hare of Whitebrook kept leaving them behind

They bowled along to Rimmon side and Towler led the pack
And never hare dare loiter with Towler on her track
They danced the royal music yon Birchen Clough across
With the scent knee-deep behind them along the Ashway Moss

They headed o'er for Slate Pit and Bounty was the cry
That gallant hound in answer rose amongst the moor grass high
"She's shot her bolt", said Andrew's, when he saw her break and fail
And he sounded 'gone-away lads' down bonny Longdendale

They went that night to Boarshurst a hunting cup to fill
Said Andrews "Merry gentlemen, this day we've failed to kill
But so long as I be huntsman, I swear it now", said he
"That the brown hare of Whitebrook shall live in peace for me"

credits

from The Poacher's Fate, released November 25, 2017
Written by Ammon Wrigley. Arr. Laura Smyth & Ted Kemp

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