“A Diller, A Dollar”

Author: unknown
Earliest date: 1784 (Gammer Gurton's Garland)

Description

"A diller, a dollar, A (ten o'clock) scholar, What makes you come so soon? You us'd to come at ten o'clock, and now you come at noon."

Notes

I know of absolutely no traditional collections of this item, and I have no idea what it means. But reading it in Baring-Gould, I remember the first two lines from somewhere, with a fragment of a tune (plus, according to Cyn Collins, _West Bank Boogie_, Triangle Park, 2006, there was in the Sixties and Seventies a folk music bar/club at the University of Minnesota called the "Ten O'Clock Scholar"), so I am very tentatively including the piece in the Index. - RBW

References

  1. Opie-Oxford2 465, "A diller, a dollar" (1 text)
  2. Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #81, p. 82, "(A diller, a dollar)"
  3. BI, BGMG081
The Traditional Ballad Index is copyright ©2008 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle. The Digital Tradition is copyright The Mudcat Cafe.