Beggars are often portrayed in the popular press as idle, workshy scroungers, who choose this “trade” as an easy way of making a living. Such views are not new, but date back at least to Tudor times. Meanwhile, songwriters and poets more frequently give an idealised, romantic view of beggars, gypsies and all those who live a travelling life.

The earliest version of A-begging I will go was printed on a black-letter broadside in 1684, and used in a ballad opera, The Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars. Versions survived in oral tradition for almost three hundred years in England and, especially, in Scotland. It is now, of course, a staple of the folk revival.

We have combined the song with the dance tune Grimstock which was printed in the first edition of John Playford’s English Dancing Master in 1651.

Six For Gold