Troops of Geyer clad in black are we Heia o-ho And we will stamp out tyranny Heia o-ho Chorus Spearmen ho! Forward go! On the castle roof let the Red Cock crow Spearmen ho! Forward go! On the castle roof let the Red Cock crow When Adam dug and Eve did toil Heia o-ho No princes trespassed on their soil Heia o-ho Bold Geyer's men their arrows shoot The knights are laid low His banner bears a peasant's boot To stamp out the foe The noble's only God is pride Heia o-ho The Holy Scripture is our guide Heia o-ho We're beaten though our cause is right Heia o-ho Our sons will carry on the fight Heia o-ho

Notes

Words from the singing of Bill Berry. According to Chris Kempster this song was brought back by Australians returning from a work brigade in Yugoslavia in the late 1940's. Werner Lowenstein tells me that he learnt it as boy in Germany and brought it to Australia as a refugee from the Nazis during World War II. He sang it in the Austral Singers in Melbourne. As far as I know this English version is only sung in Australia. "On the castle roof let the Red Cock crow" is a euphamism for burning the castle down.



The song comes from a German song "Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen" ("We are the Black Band of Geyer"). Florian Geyer was a Franconian Knight who joined the rebels in the German Peasant's War of 1525, rallying under the Peasantry's famous "Bundschuh" flag, which Brad Tate tells me is a red black and white flag with a peasant's boot or clog as the emblem. John Manifold recalls the song being played by BBC broadcasts to Germany during World War II. He included his 1948 translation of it in his Collected Verses (QUP 1978)



The lines:

"When Adam dug and Eve did toil

No princes trespassed on their soil"

are remarkably similar to a verse from the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381:

"When Adam dug and Eve Span

Who was then the Gentleman?"



Recently I discovered this German version on the Web at:

http://www.karoshi.de/Bibliothek/Lieder/geyer.htm



Florian Geyer