A qui me passera le bois moi qui est si petite (MS2011-3223-048)

A qui me passera le bois moi qui est si petite (MS2011-3223-048)

French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223-048 Alice Lacourse Danis Songbook. Pp. 41.

“A qui me passera le bois” (“Who Will Guide Me Through the Woods?”) is a traditional French song which has been widely documented since the last decades of the 1800s, but whose poetic structure, subject matter, and widespread circulation suggest a considerably older origin. Versions of this song have been collected and recorded in Belgium, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, France, and Massachusetts.

[refrain: Lovely one wait, I will guide you back once again]; who will guide me through the woods, I who am so small? Ah, here is a man, doesn’t he have a kindly face? When they had crossed the woods, the maiden began to laugh; what makes you laugh so? I laugh at you, at me, and our crazy doings: that you guided me through the woods without so much as a word; Come back, my lovely one, and I will give you 100 pounds; no, not for 100, nor 200, nor 300, nor 1000 pounds; the time to take the partridge is when it is trapped; once it takes flight, it’s too late.

VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223 Alice Lacourse Danis Songbook. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.

A qui me passera le bois moi qui est si petite

Le passage du bois I, K-7

Le passage du bois (la fille égarée) 1903

Who Will Guide Me Through the Woods?

A qui me passera le bois moi qui est si petite

1
A qui me passera le bois moi qui est si petite
A c’est ce messieu que voila n’a til pas bonne mine

Refrain
Attendez belle belle attendez j’irai vous reconduire

2
Quand elle eut traverse le bois la belle se mit a rire
Qu’avez vous belle attendez qu’avez vous a tant rire
Refrain

3
Ajerit de toi je rit de moi de notre folle enterprise
C’est de m’avoir passe le bois sans petit mot me dire
Refrain

4
A revenez belle revenez je vous donnerai cents livres
O non ni pour cent ni pour deux cent ni trois cent ni pour mille
Refrain

5
A c’est d’avoir prit la perdrie Durant qu’elle est prise
Après qu’elle eut pris sa volle il n’y a pas de reprise
Refrain