The Mistress's Health
Speed the Plough track 13
A toast from Lucy Broadwood's collection, noted from John Burberry, a retired gamekeeper, at Lyne in Sussex, September 1892. Mr Burberry was also the source of the Carter's Health.
When sung at harvest homes and the like, the singers, at the words "O is she so?" &c., carry candles up to the mistress as if to investigate her claim to be "the fairest of twenty."
You can hear a 2013 live recording of Magpie Lane performing this song in St Mary’s Church, Bampton, at A Folk Song A Week Week 164 – Carter’s Health / Mistress’s Health.