In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping of round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming the excess body from dried ware and for applying incised decoration or rings of color. Use of the potter's wheel became widespread throughout the Old World but was unknown in the Pre-Columbian New World, where pottery was handmade by methods that included coiling and beating.
A potter's wheel may occasionally be referred to as a "potter's lathe". However, that term is better used for another kind of machine that is used for a different shaping process, turning, similar to that used for shaping of metal and wooden articles.
The techniques of jiggering and jollying can be seen as extensions of the potter's wheel: in jiggering, a shaped tool is slowly brought down onto the plastic clay body that has been placed on top of the rotating plaster mould. The jigger tool shapes one face, the mould the other. The term is specific to the shaping of flat ware, such as plates, whilst a similar technique, jollying, refers to the production of hollow ware, such as cups.
One night as I lay dreaming of pleasant days gone by
My mind was bent on rambling to Ireland I did fly
I stepped on a vision and I followed with the wind,
When at last I came to anchor at the cross of Spancill Hill.
Then on the 23rd of June the day before the fair,
When Ireland's sons and daughters and friends assembled there.
The young, the old, the brave and the bold came their duty to fulfill
At the Parish Church in Clooney a mile from Spancill Hill.
I went to see my neighbours, to hear what they might say,
The old ones were all dead and gone, and the young ones turning grey
I met the tailor Quigley, he's as bold as ever still,
Sure he used to make my britches when I lived in Spancil Hill.
I paid a flying visit to my first and only love,
She's as fair as any lily and gentle as a dove
She threw her arms around me, saying "Johnny, I love you still"
Ah she's Ned, the farmer's daughter, the pride of Spancil Hill
I dreamt I held and kissed her as in the days of yore
"Oh Johnny you're only joking, as many's the time before"
The cock he crew in the morning, he crew both loud and shrill,