Wilmot MacDonald - Watercresses



The song is about a dairy farmer, Tim Morgan, who comes from Duntyshire to see friends in Cambridge Wells where he meets a young woman and asked her to marry him. She agrees and takes five sovereigns from him for wedding expenses. He gets a letter the next day that informs him that the woman he asked to marry is already married and in the letter the woman mentions that her husband will repay the sovereigns back when he can afford it. There are recordings by two Miramichi singers of this British broadside ballad: another version by Wilmot MacDonald, and another by Joseph R. Estey. The earliest known print version of the text (lyrics) of this song was printed between 1863-1885 in London.