Billy Boy Lyrics
Someone keeps asking Billy Boy questions: where has he been all day, is Nancy fit to be his wife, and can she cook steak, girdle cake or Irish stew? Billy answers every time. Four verses in Northumbrian speech, from a collection of sailors' songs.
Billy Boy
Where hev ye been aeal the day,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Where hev ye been aeal the day, me Billy Boy?
I've been walkin' aeal the day
With me charmin' Nancy Grey,
And me Nancy kittl'd me fancy
Oh me charmin' Billy Boy.
Is she fit to be yor wife
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Is she fit to be yor wife, me Billy Boy?
She's as fit to be me wife
As the fork is to the knife
And me Nancy kittl'd me fancy
Oh me charmin' Billy Boy.
Can she cook a bit o' steak
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Can she cook a bit o' steak, me Billy Boy?
She can cook a bit o' steak,
Aye, and myek a gairdle cake
And me Nancy kittl'd me fancy
Oh me charmin' Billy Boy.
Can she myek an Irish Stew
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Can she myek an Irish Stew, me Billy Boy?
She can myek an Irish Stew
Aye, and "Singin' Hinnies" too.
And me Nancy kittl'd me fancy
Oh me charmin' Billy Boy.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/billy-boy/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- A steady call-and-answer tune, the questioner singing the first lines and Billy answering
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
What Does Billy Boy Mean?
The song is a question-and-answer. The first three lines of each verse are a question that repeats Billy's name, and the next two lines are his reply. In the first verse Billy has been "walkin' aeal the day", which means walking all day, "with me charmin' Nancy Grey". The refrain says that Nancy kittl'd his fancy, meaning she tickled it, or pleased him very much.
The words are in the speech of Northumberland, in the north-east of England, and the book adds a short word list. Aeal is all, myek is make, and a gairdle cake is a girdle cake, one baked on a flat griddle. Singin' Hinnies are a kind of large teacake of the Sally Lunn sort, with currants sprinkled over. Billy is proud of Nancy: asked if she is fit to be his wife, he says she is as fit as the fork is to the knife.
The song is easy to turn into a game. One person asks, a second answers as Billy, and the whole group joins in on the refrain.
History and Origin
The book is Richard Runciman Terry's The Shanty Book, Part I: Sailor Shanties, published by J. Curwen and Sons in 1921, and it labels this one a Northumbrian capstan shanty. A capstan is the big upright drum on a ship's deck that sailors turned to haul up the anchor. Terry says it is undoubtedly a coast song that was made into a shanty, and that he heard it in Northumberland, on shore and aboard ships, when he was a boy.
He also says that songs about a Billy who has been courting are found in different parts of the country with different tunes and words. Ralph Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp both printed versions, under the titles My Boy Billie and My Boy Willie. Terry notes that there are more verses than the four he printed, and the book writes the refrain in full only once; here it is written out in every verse.
Learning Activities
- Ask and answer: one child is Billy, another asks the questions, and everyone joins in on the last two lines of each verse.
- Dialect detective: read a verse aloud and ask the children to say each odd word in their own speech, such as aeal for all.
- Griddle baking: with an adult, make drop scones on a pan and compare them with the girdle cake in the song.
- Fork and knife: set a table and talk about things that belong together, like fork and knife or Nancy and Billy.