"...and he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled, you'll come a waltzing matilda with me...".
At one time Joan invented other names for her. 'Matilda' brought to mind dingy curtains, gray tent flaps, a slack-skinned old woman. How about Sharon? Lilliane? Elizabeth? Then, Joan didn't know how, the name Matilda became transformed. It started shining like silver. The il in it was silver. But not metallic. In Joan's mind the name gleamed now like a fold of satin.
When a hobo roams through the outback with a matilda on his back, he is said to be waltzing matilda..