Waltzing Matilda Essay

Waltzing Matilda is a well known Australian bush ballad. It has been claimed as the country's unofficial national anthem. The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing, derived from the German auf der Walz) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or "swagman", making a drink of billy tea at a bush camp and capturing a jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the sheep's owner, a squatter, arrives with three police officers to arrest the swagman for the theft, he commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site.
The original lyrics were written in 1895 by Australian poet Banjo Paterson, and were