“Shoveller, shoveller, what do you shovel?”
“I’m shovelling the muck outside your hovel.”
“Shoveller, shoveller, please desist!
I love my muck, it will be much missed!”
“Peasant, oh peasant, the muck is not yours.
I’m shovelling it off for a greater cause.
The cause of the princeling who owns your muck,
As he owns you, your hovel and your duck
And your pot and your pan and your hay and your straw.
The princeling needs your muck for the war.”
“Shoveller, shoveller, what war is that?”
“It is the war of the princeling’s hat.”
Fragment from an old folk song called “The War Of The Princeling’s Hat”.
There is a duck called a shoveler (only one “L” for the duck it seems. Has this anything to do with anything?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Shoveler
Mr Yates : Indeed it does! For further information regarding shovellers and shovelers, see here:
http://hootingyard.org/archives/9414
(I was ignorant of the one-L, two-L dichotomy, so thank you for that.)
There is a duck called the ruddy duck, you know. It comes from America and is identical with a Spanish duck. They are interbreeding so Spanish ornithological purists have called for the slaughter of these ruddy ducks to save the Spanish duck gene pool.In secret, all over the UK, government marksmen have been blasting away in parks and by village ponds at our ruddy ducks. Hooting Yard tales are beginning to occur in objective reality. This always happens with art.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/08/ruddy-ducks-extermination