"There Was a Jolly Miller Once" is a

traditional A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

folk song (

Roud The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

#503) from the Chester area in northwest

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is often titled "The Miller of the Dee" or "The Jolly Miller". The song was originally part of

Isaac Bickerstaffe Isaac Bickerstaffe or Bickerstaff (26 September 1733 – after 1808) was an Irish playwright and Librettist. Early life Isaac John Bickerstaff was born in Dublin, on 26 September 1733, where his father John Bickerstaff held a government posi ...

's play, '' Love in a Village'' (1762). Subsequently, other versions of Bickerstaffe's original song were made by various other poets. The city of Chester stands on the River Dee and a weir was built across the river here in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

to maintain high water levels for several water mills which stood on its banks. The River Dee rises on the eastern slopes of Dduallt in

Snowdonia Snowdonia or Eryri (), is a mountainous region in northwestern Wales and a national park of in area. It was the first to be designated of the three national parks in Wales, in 1951. Name and extent It was a commonly held belief that the na ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

and enters the

Dee Estuary The Dee Estuary ( cy, Aber Dyfrdwy) is a large estuary by means of which the River Dee flows into Liverpool Bay. The estuary starts near Shotton after a five-mile (8 km) 'canalised' section and the river soon swells to be several miles ...

on the outskirts of Chester. The English name for the river is derived from its

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

name, . Its

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

name was . The song is usually sung to the

harp tune . Many settings of the tune have been made by British composers, most notably

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

in volume three of his Folk-song arrangements (1947).

Roger Quilter Roger Cuthbert Quilter (1 November 1877 – 21 September 1953) was a British composer, known particularly for his art songs. His songs, which number over a hundred, often set music to text by William Shakespeare and are a mainstay of the E ...

's setting of the song was included in the ''

Arnold Book of Old Songs The ''Arnold Book of Old Songs'' is a collection of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh and French folk songs and traditional songs, with new piano accompaniments by Roger Quilter. Quilter dedicated it to and named it after his nephew Arnold Guy Viv ...

'', published in 1950. Beethoven set Version 3 below, for 3 singers and piano trio, in 1819. Several versions for choir also exist, such as that by

John Rutter John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. Biography Born on 24 September 1945 in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutte ...

. In 1962

Havergal Brian Havergal Brian (born William Brian; 29 January 187628 November 1972) was an English composer. He is best known for having composed 32 symphonies (an unusually high total for a 20th-century composer), most of them late in his life. His best-known ...

wrote a comedy overture for orchestra based on the tune. A 1997 local interest book on the history of the Mills and Millers in Chester was named after this folk song.Miller of Dee, Roy Wilding, 1997
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The original song from Bickerstaffe's "Love in a village" (1762)

:There dwelt a miller, hale and bold, beside the river Dee; :He danced and sang from morn till night, no lark so blithe as he; :And this the burden of his song forever used to be: - :"I care for nobody, no not I, if nobody cares for me. :"I live by my mill, God bless her! she's kindred, child, and wife; :I would not change my station for any other in life; :No lawyer, surgeon, or doctor e'er had a groat from me; :I care for nobody, no not I if nobody cares for me." :When spring begins his merry career, oh, how his heart grows gay; :No summer's drought alarms his fear, nor winter's cold decay; :No foresight mars the miller's joy, who's wont to sing and say, :"Let others toil from year to year, I live from day to day." :Thus, like the miller, bold and free, let us rejoice and sing; :The days of youth are made for glee, and time is on the wing; :This song shall pass from me to thee, along the jovial ring; :Let heart and voice and all agree to say, "Long live the king."

Lyrics (Version 2)

:There was a jolly miller once :Lived on the River Dee :He danced and he sang from morn till night :No lark so blithe as he. :And this the burden of his song :For ever used to be :I care for nobody, no, not I, :If nobody cares for me.

Lyrics (Version 3)

:There was a jolly miller once :Lived on the River Dee; :He work'd and sang from morn till night, :No lark more blithe than he. :And this the burden of his song :Forever used to be; :I care for nobody, no, not I, :If nobody cares for me.

Popular culture

Rod Steiger, playing serial killer Christopher Gill, whistled "The Miller of Dee" several times in the 1968 film '' No Way to Treat a Lady''. As well as this,

Robert Newton Robert Guy Newton (1 June 1905 – 25 March 1956) was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for h ...

sung an alternative version in the 1952 film ''

Blackbeard the Pirate ''Blackbeard the Pirate'' is a 1952 Technicolor adventure film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Robert Newton, Linda Darnell, William Bendix, Keith Andes, and Torin Thatcher. The film was made by RKO Radio Pictures and produced by Edmun ...

''; and it was also sung by Stewart Granger in the 1944 film '' Love Story.'' The song is performed briefly in Eugene O'Neill's 1922 play,

The Hairy Ape ''The Hairy Ape'' is a 1922 expressionist play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It is about a beastly, unthinking laborer known as Yank, the protagonist of the play, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich ...

References

{{Authority control English folk songs 18th-century songs 1760s songs