A Man and a Maid- Stilwell (AR-OK) c1888 Moores
[From Ethel and Chauncey Moore; Ballads and Folk Songs of the Southwest, 1964. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
31 The Baffled Knight
TnB earliest known version of The Baffed Knight (Child, No. 112) is the one printed by Joseph Ritson in his Ancient Songs and Ballads, II, 54. The Oklahoma text is similar to Child E, which "is, in all probability, a broadside copy modified by tradition" (see Child, II, 48). Henry B. Wheatley, editor of the 1927 edition of Percy's Reliques, quotes Ritson as saying (Percy, II, 336): "Bp. Percy found the subject worthy of his best improvements." It has come down to us through Motherwell's Minstrelsy (410) from the singing of Agnes Lyle in September, 1835.
For other references, see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, 454-56; Creighton and Senior, 63-65; Percy, II, 336-42; and Sharp, II, 119-21(Katie Morie).
A Man and a Maid, sung by Mrs. Minnie Daugherty, Stilwell, who was born and reared in the Boston Mountains of Arkansas. "I am eighty-four years old, and I've known this dirty little song almost that long," she told us. "I have lived in Stilwell for fifty years."
[Spoken] A man and a maid was riding along the road,
and they were courting to be wed:
They rode along the road till they come to two stacks of oats.
"Ain't that a pretty place for man and maid to court?"
Chorus: "Oh, the dew is on the ground will rumple my silk gown.
Wait till we get to father's house; we'll have a bed of down."
They rode along the road till they come to two stacks of wheat.
"Ain't that a pretty place for man and maid to meet?"
(Chorus)
They rode along the road till they come to two stacks of rye.
"Ain't that a pretty place for man and maid to lie?"
(Chorus)
They rode along the road till they come to two stacks of rye.
She wheeled herself in the gate, she wheeled herself about.
"I'm a maid within the gate, and you're a fool without."
"You see my father's old gray horse that stands in yonders barn?
He looks across the trough but dares to touch the corn."
"You see my father's rooster cock that stands in yonders den?
He flaps his wings but daresn't touch a hen."
"If I ever meet a pretty maid, I'll damn her for my sake,
Because you cheated me out of my life today."