Hallo again,
My friend David Thomas, from the RT list, has come up with this answer
to my "fences" question - which I would have found had not the Oxford
Book of Carols been missing from its place on our Library shelves
earlier this week!:
"I think "full fences three" means the cock crowed three times.
It's in the Oxford Book of Carols, 1926 originally where it says it
was collected words and tune from Mrs Plumb of Armscote,
Worcestershire by Cecil Sharp, so doubtless appears in some of his
output somewhere. The book says fences (or sences) = times.
File under Legendary
The story it says goes back to c.1200 in Prior's Ancient Danish
Ballads."
Thanks for everyone's other suggestions.
Paul
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Paul Woods,
Assistant Librarian, Social Sciences,
Arts & Social Sciences Library,
University of Bristol Information Services,
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Bristol BS8 1TJ.
Tel.: 0117-9288029 (ext.) 8029 (int.) Fax: 0117-925-5334
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Home Page: http://info.bris.ac.uk/~lipw/paulhome.htm
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