There was once a farmer and he had a baulkey mare,
And he took her out to sell her at Enniscorthy fair;
Off goes the son along with him who says, "I'll do my best
To praise the mare if any one a trial should request."

They were there but twenty minutes when a jobber came along,
Who said, "She's one I'd fancy though in limb she isn't strong,
I will make an offer and I hope you won't decline,
I'll give eleven guineas if the mare she will be mine.

He paid him down the money and he took the mare away
To a stable by the Shannon he had rented for the day,
Where he clipped her all over and docked her tale(?) and mane
And less than twenty minutes had her at the fair again.

With a saddle and a bridle and a rider on her back
And she looking like a racer that you'd see upon the track,
The farmer who had sold her met her trotting up the fair
Never thinking for a moment that she was his baulkey mare.

To his son he softly whispered "There's a mare I'd like to buy,
She's free and full of action and is pleasing to the eye."
He asked the price, and the rider he swiftly turned around
Saying, "Will you give me twenty guineas and I'll give you a pound."

The farmer viewed over as if it were a spell,
He paid him down the money for he like the mare so well;
And coming home that evening while trotting up the lane
Who'd be standing at the doorstep but his little daughter Jane.

She loudly called her mama, sayin "The mare they didn't sell,
She's clipped, you'd hardly know her but her walk you would know well,
In a moment comes her mama, saying, "You're welcom from the fair,
But will you tell me Sean a mhic, why did you clip the mare?"

Tune: The Galtee Farmer)