No. 278: The Farmer's Curst Wife
[The broadside (dated June, 1630), "The Devill and the Scold," also titled, "How the Devil (Divell) was gull'd (guld) by a Scold," is the first extant printing of the ballad. Although it tells the same basic story as the re-write of a Scottish version, The Carle of Kellyburn Braes by Robert Burns in 1797, "The Devill and the Scold" is a much different ballad. A subsequent re-write of Burns by Alan Cunningham in 1810 which claims to be the "original" of The Carle of Kellyburn Braes is, according to Paterson who lists verses 6, 7, 12, 14 and 15 entirely by Cunningham, not the original. See Child's commentary below and look at English & Other Versions to get the texts and commentary about each version.
In the US this humorous ballad was recorded twice by early country artists: 1928 Bill and Bell Reed (Listen: Old Lady and the Devil) and 1939 Billy Cox and Cliff Hobbs (Battle Axe and the Devil). It was recorded as an Ohio River song, "Daddy Be Gay," by Captain Pearl Nye in 1937 by John Lomax. Nye learned it from his father certainly around the 1880s and Lomax titled it, "The Old Woman Under the Hill." It was also recorded by African-American songsters "Iron Head" Baker in 1939 and also a different recording by Halpert of Joe Hubbard from Wise, Virginia. Horton Barker's well-known version was also recorded for the LOC in 1939.
It was collected in 1906 by Belden and Phillips Barry first published US versions in his 1908 book, Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States. Shortly thereafter John Lomax published a cowboy version in his 1910 book, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (reprinted various times- view 1922 edition online).
R. Matteson 2013]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes (There are no footnotes for this ballad)
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Texts A-B
5. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 278. The Farmer's Curst Wife
A. Roud No. 160: The Farmer's Curst Wife (349 Listings)
2. Sheet Music: 278. The Farmer's Curst Wife (Bronson's music examples and texts)
3. US and Canadian Versions:
4. English and Other Versions (Including Child versions A-B)
Child's Narrative: 278. The Farmer's Curst Wife
A. 'The Farmer's Old Wife,' Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 210, Percy Society, vol. xvii. The same in Bell, p. 204.
B. Macmath Manuscript, p. 96.
The devil comes for a farmer's wife and is made welcome to her by the husband. The woman proves to be no more controllable in hell than she had been at home; she kicks the imps about, and even brains a set of them with her pattens or a maul. For safety's sake, the devil is constrained to take her back to her husband.
B. The ballad of 'Kellyburnbraes,' Johnson's Museum, No 379, p. 392, was composed by Burns, as he has himself informed us, "from the old traditional version." "The original ballad, still preserved by tradition," says David Laing, "was much improved in passing through Burns's hands:" Museum, IV, *389, 1853. Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 83, 1810, gives us what he calls the "Original of Burns's Carle of Kelly-Burn Braes," remarking, with some effrontery, that there is reason to believe that Burns had not seen the whole of the verses which constitute this copy. Allan Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, II, 199, undertook "to make a more complete version than has hitherto appeared" out of Burns, Cromek, and some "fugitive copies." So we get the original from none of them, but are, rather, further from it at each step. Whether B has come down pure, unaffected by Burns and Cromek, it is impossible to say. That it shows resemblances to both copies is not against its genuineness, if there was a fair leaven of the popular ballad in each of these reconstructions; and it is probable that there would be, at least in Burns's.
A curst wife who was a terror to demons is a feature in a widely spread and highly humorous tale, Oriental and European. See Benfey, Pantschatantra, I, 519-34; and, for a variety which is, at the beginning, quite close to our ballad, Ralston, Russian Folk-Tales, p. 39 (Afanasief, I, No 9).
Cromek's ballad is translated by Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 93, Hausschatz, p. 230.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
A curst wife who was a terror to demons is a feature in a widely spread and highly humorous tale, Oriental and European. See Benfey, Pantschatantra, 1, 519-34; and, for a variety which is, at the beginning, quite close to our ballad, Ralston, Russian Folk-Tales, p. 39.
Child's Ballad Texts
'The Farmer's Old Wife'- Version A; Child 278 The Farmer's Curst Wife
Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs, p. 210, Percy Society, vol. xvii.
1 There was an old farmer in Sussex did dwell,
(chorus of whistlers)
There was an old farmer in Sussex did dwell,
And he had a bad wife, as many knew well.
(chorus of whistlers)
2 Then Satan came to the old man at the plough:
'One of your family I must have now.
3 'It is not your eldest son that I crave,
But it is your old wife, and she I will have.'
4 'O welcome, good Satan, with all my heart!
I hope you and she will never more part.
5 Now Satan has got the old wife on his back,
And he lugged her along, like a pedlar's pack.
6 He trudged away till they came to his hall-gate;
Says he, Here, take in an old Sussex chap's mate.
7 O then she did kick the young imps about;
Says one to the other, Let's try turn her out.
8 She spied thirteen imps all dancing in chains,
She up with her pattens and beat out their brains.
9 She knocked the old Satan against the wall!
'Let's turn her out, or she'll murder us all.'
10 Now he's bundled her up on his back amain,
And to her old husband he took her again.
11 'I have been a tormentor the whole of my life,
But I neer was tormented so as with your wife.'
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['Old Scolding Woman']- Version B; Child 278 The Farmer's Curst Wife
Macmath Manuscript, p. 96. Taken down by Mr. Macmath from the recitation of his aunt, Miss Jane Webster, Crossmichael, Kirkcudbrightshire, August 27th, 1892; learned many years ago, at Airds of Kells, from the singing of Samuel Galloway.
1 The auld Deil cam to the man at the pleugh,
Rumchy ae de aidie
Saying, I wish ye gude luck at the making o yer sheugh.
Mushy toorin an ant tan aira
2 'It's neither your oxen nor you that I crave;
It's that old scolding woman, it's her I must have.'
3 'Ye're welcome to her wi a' my gude heart;
I wish you and her it's never may part.'
4 She jumped on to the auld Deil's back,
And he carried her awa like a pedlar's pack.
5 He carried her on till he cam to hell's door,
He gaed her a kick till she landed in the floor.
6 She saw seven wee deils a sitting in a raw,
She took up a mell and she murdered them a'.
7 A wee reekit deil lookit owre the wa:
'O tak her awa, or she'll ruin us a'.'
8 'O what to do wi her I canna weel tell;
She's no fit for heaven, and she'll no bide in hell.'
* * * * * * * *
9 She jumpit on to the auld Deil's back,
And he carried her back like a pedlar's pack.
* * * * * * * *
10 She was seven years gaun, and seven years comin,
And she cried for the sowens she left in the pot.
Additions and Corrections
P. 107 a. This has no connection with the story in Wendenmuth, Œsterley, I, 366, p. 402; see Œsterley's note, V, 60.
Compare the broadside ballad 'The Devil and the Scold,' Roxburghe Collection, I, 340, 341; Chappell, Roxburghe Ballads, II, i, 367 ff.; Collier, Book of Roxburghe Ballads, 1847, p. 35 ff.