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Whose Pigs are These?

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Performer: Unknown female
Place Collected: Slad
Date collected: 1967
Roud Number: 6481

This little ditty, often known as “whose little pigs are these” and usually sung as a round, has a surprisingly long history,   “Merry Songs and Ballads: Prior to the Year A.D. 1800, Volume 3 edited by John Stephen Farmer” has the following, dated 1770:

Whose three Hoggs are these, and whose three Hoggs are these?
They are John Cook’s, I know by their looks,
For I found them in my Pease.
Oh Pound them, oh Pound them, but I dare not for my Life,
For if I shou’d Pound John Cook’s Hoggs I should never kiss John Cook’s wife.
But as for John Cook’s Wife, I’ll say no more than mum:
Then, here’s to thee, thou first Hogg, until the Second come.

 Of course, many Gloucestershire people consider that the “spots” refer to the Gloucester Old Spot pig.

Notes by Gwilym Davies


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