Gundagai: Beef Wellington (1965)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/1/01 1:33:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM
writes:

<<    As you may know, I just came back from Australia.  I visited Gundagai.
I also visited the dog on the tuckerbox, nine miles from Gundagai.  (The
distance varies--some have it as five miles.  Check the many web sites on
Google.)
    It's SAT on the tuckerbox.  In the statue, the dog sits.  Too bad I can't
post my "Popik & Tuckerbox dog" photo here.
    In the famous song, the dog also SITS.
    No tourist literature that I came across said SHAT.
    But the legend goes back to the 1850s, and that's tourist literature! >>

My evidence for "shat" is the following:  when I was in Australia in 1975, I
asked an Australian (a tour guide of some sort, if I remember correctly)
about Gundagai and he said, "Jack Moses wrote a poem, which had to be
censored."  Some time later, I don't remember if before or after I visited
Gundagai, I read somewhere about "the dog who was in the habit of befouling
provisions."

I found a text of that Gundagai poem on the Internet at URL

http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~stmcdona/tuckrbox.html

This Web page opens with the caveat

     Like much of Australia's early folklore,
     the origins of the Dog on the Tuckerbox
     are clouded in mystery, uncertainty and controversy.

and gives TWO poems.  The first is by a pseudonymous
"Bowyang Yorke"

1.  As I was coming down Conroy's Gap,
2.  I heard a maiden cry;
3.  'There goes Bill the Bullocky,
4.  He's bound for Gundagai.
5.  A better poor old beggar
6.  Never earnt an honest crust,
7.  A better poor old beggar
8.  Never drug a whip through dust.'
9.  His team got bogged at the nine mile creek,
10. Bill lashed and swore and cried;
11. 'If Nobby don't get me out of this,
12. I'll tattoo his bloody hide.'
13. But Nobby strained and broke the yoke,
14. And poked out the leader's eye;
15. Then the dog sat on the Tucker Box
16. Nine miles from Gundagai.

Lines 9 through 14 set up a theme of everlasting disaster and one might
expect line 15 to document further disaster, which it would if the verb were
"shat".  However, "sat" turns line 15 into an anticlimax.


'Nine Miles from Gundagai' by Jack Moses

1.  I've done my share of shearing sheep,
2.  Of droving and all that;
3.  And bogged a bullock team as well,
4.  On a Murrumbidgee flat.
5.  I've seen the bullock stretch and strain
6.  And blink his bleary eye,
7.  And the dog sit on the tuckerbox
8.  Nine miles from Gundagai.

9.  I've been jilted, jarred and crossed in love,
10. And sand-bagged in the dark,
11. Till if a mountain fell on me,
12. I'd treat it as a lark.
13. It's when you've got your bullocks bogged,
14. That's the time you flog and cry,
15. And the dog sits on the tuckerbox
16. Nine miles from Gundagai.

17. We've all got our little troubles,
18. In life's hard, thorny way.
19. Some strike them in a motor car
20. And others in a dray.
21. But when your dog and bullocks strike,
22. It ain't no apple pie,
23. And the dog sat on the tuckerbox
24. Nine miles from Gundagai.

25. But that's all past and dead and gone,
26. And I've sold the team for meat,
27. And perhaps, some day where I was bogged,
28. There'll be an asphalt street,
29. The dog, ah! well he got a bait,
30. And thought he'd like to die,
31. So I buried him in the tuckerbox,
32. Nine miles from Gundagai.

In the Moses version lines  5 and 6 describe a straining bullock.  Line 7 one
might expect to continue this theme of straining, but as written here, it
merely describes the dog as being a passive onlooker.  Lines 13 and 14 say
"It's when [certain bad things happen]" but line 15 with the verb "sits"
fails to continue this theme and again presents an anticlimax.  Similarly for
lines 21 through 23.

It should also be noted that the dog, who in the first three stanzas as
written here (and despite lines 17 and 18) appears to have sat uncomplaining
and unaffected through all this strife and chaos, now in lines 29 through 31
acquires the bad luck of the narrator and dies (or perhaps is buried alive).

I rest my case.

- Jim Landau

P.S.  In the Yorke poem note line 8 "drug" as the past tense of "drag".
         In the Moses poem Line 22: and I always assumed "apple pie" was a
strictly US metaphor
        Line 28: the idea of paving a street with asphalt may possibly
provide a date for this version of the Moses poem