Foggy Dew

Foggy Dew

“Foggy Dew” is an English song. The expression itself can have two meanings:

  1. tuberculosis
  2. Peter Kennedy had this to say: "James Reeves, in trying to discover the significance of the title, suggests `fogge', the `Middle English for coarse, rank grass of the kind that grows in marshes and bogs where the atmosphere would be damp and misty', and this would represent maidenhead, and the dew would imply virginity or chastity. `Foggy Dew' may be an English tongue's best attempt at the sound of the Gaelic, and derive from `Oroce dhu' meaning a black or dark night. Robert Graves proposed a theory that it stood for the black pestilence of the church and that the girl was really being protected from entering a nunnery. There seems no end to what can be interpreted from the lines of folksongs." (From "Folksongs of Britain and Ireland", Oak Publications, 1975.)

Read more about Foggy Dew:  Foggy, Foggy Dew

Famous quotes by foggy dew:

    “When I was a bachelor, I lived by myself
    And I worked at the weaver’s trade;
    The only, only, thing that I ever did wrong
    Was to woo a fair young maid.
    I wooed her in the winter time,
    And in the summer too;
    And the only, only thing that I ever did wrong
    Was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.”
    —Unknown. The Foggy, Foggy Dew (l. 1–8)