Author: John Chivers via YouTube
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My "Prog-esque" arrangement and recording of the mid-13th century English rota and celebration of summer.
Recorded in Cubase Artist 11 using a combination of virtual instruments, including the excellent Superior Drummer 3, triggered using the Alesis Crimson 2 electric drum kit.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer_is_icumen_in for more details on the music.
As for the "bucke uerteþ", deer farting/prancing debate, see this article and make your own mind up!
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94624/13th-century-song-about-deer-farts-debate
As an Englishman, I suspect our taste in toilet humour is long-standing and our forefathers found breaking wind as funny as we do, if not more so. Chaucer and medieval art would tend to suggest this is the case. I feel I’d come down on the side of the deliberate innuendo, so that the author wilfully chose a slightly cheeky lyric.
Middle English lyrics
Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu
Groweþ sed
and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu
Sing cuccu
Awe bleteþ after lomb
lhouþ after calue cu
Bulluc sterteþ
bucke uerteþ
murie sing cuccu
Cuccu cuccu
Wel singes þu cuccu
ne swik þu nauer nu
Sing cuccu nu • Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu • Sing cuccu nu
Modern English
Summer has arrived,
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now,
Sing, cuckoo!
The ewe is bleating after her lamb,
The cow is lowing after her calf;
The bullock is prancing,
The billy-goat farting, [or "The stag cavorting"]
Sing merrily, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo,
Never stop now.
Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo;
Sing, cuckoo; sing, cuckoo, now!
Cuckoo sound: https://freesound.org/people/plantmonkey/sounds/376703/
Cuckoo illustration: https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/amp/media/cuculus-canorus-cuckoo-83d576