"Come, all ye jolly tinner boys" is a traditional
folk song
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
associated with
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
that was written about 1807, when
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
made threats that would affect trade in Cornwall at the time of the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
. The song contains the line ''Why forty thousand Cornish boys shall knawa the reason why.''
According to Cornish historian
Robert Morton Nance
Robert Morton Nance (1873–1959) was a British writer and leading authority on the Cornish language, a nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society.
Nance wrote many books and pamphlets on the Cornish language, inclu ...
, it was possibly the inspiration for
R. S. Hawker's "
The Song of the Western Men
"The Song of the Western Men", also known as "Trelawny", is a Cornish patriotic song, composed by Louisa T. Clare for lyrics by Robert Stephen Hawker. The poem was first published anonymously in ''The Royal Devonport Telegraph and Plymouth Ch ...
" which was written in 1824 and contains a strikingly similar line: ''Here's twenty thousand Cornish men will know the reason why!''
Lyrics
A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs (1850) By James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps
/ref>
References
External links
The Reason Why
article from ''Old Cornwall'' by Robert Morton Nance.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Come, All Ye Jolly Tinner Boys
Cornish folk songs
Cornish patriotic songs