euphamisms in 'The Brown and the Yellow Ale'

iamjohno

Was listening recently to Luke Kelly's haunting rendition of that song, 'The Brown and the Yellow Ale'
I know that the song is about the ugly business of pimping out ones wife, but there are a few lines I don't understand.
'she sent two men out for timber'??
'a board of alder and a board of holly'??

If there's anyone out there who's a bit wiser than I, I'd be most grateful if they could shed some light on this

trad

Looks like it was a traditional Irish song
(Traditional Gaelic song. English Lyrics adapted by C. Jurkovic & F. Brewer)

Jurkovic appears to be a Croation name. Irish to English via Croation could lead to some misunderstanding

trad

Bit more research and the answer in in the preceeding lines. He pretended to be dead and two men were sent to get wood for the coffin

Two men were sent to the forest for wood; a half load each of holly and alder.

Bit of a discussion here
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=40395

including the lyrics in Irish

iamjohno

Thanks a million trad
It just so happens i'm a fluent Irish speaker, so that was particularly helpful to me.
Looks like the English version Luke sings is pretty far from the Irish version given on that page. The translator there gave themselves far too little credit, though, as their version is pretty near bang on.
In fact it seems I had completely misunderstood the point of the song.