Devil & the Farmer's Wife- Barhight (NY) 1956 Stekert; Bronson 26
[This ballad was collected by in 1956 by Stekerd who recorded it in 1958 under the title, "Poor Anthony Rolly." Barhight apparently learned this pre-1920. Following are the notes from the Folkways recording. Bronson's text has slight differences. Compare to Michigan version D (Gardner 1939) and Flanders F. ]
Songs of a New York Lumberjack
Ellen Stekert FW02354 / FA 2354; 1958
Folklorist Ellen Stekert collected the eighteen songs on this album from Ezra "Fuzzy" Barhight, a retired lumberjack in Cohocton, New York. Here, she sings a selection of songs that Fuzzy learned from his mother and from other lumbermen in northern Pennsylvania and southern New York.
ELLEN STEKERT, a native of Great Neck, Long Island, is presently an instructor in the English Department at Indiana University, where she is also working on her Master's Degree in folklore. As an undergraduate student at Cornell University, she had more than the average student's interest in folkmusic, and was assistant to one of New York State's senior folklorists, Professor Harold W. Thompson, in addition to having had a weekly program of folksongs on radio station WVBR.
Hiss Stekert has had considerable experience both as a collector and singer of folksongs. She has recorded folksongs from traditional singers in various parts of the United States and Europe, as well as in her native New York State. She has previously made several excellent albums of folksongs for three different record companies. This is her first recording for FOLKWAYS RECORDS
The eighteen songs in this album are from the repertoire of one man, Mr. Ezra ("Fuzzy") Barhight, age eighty-one, of Cohocton, New York. He learned most of these songs in his younger years from his mother and from the lumbermen he worked with in his travels across Northern Pennsylvania and southern New York State. Of the nearly one hundred songs Fuzzy sang for me, there were only about ten that he could comment on as to where and when he had learned them and most of these he learned from his mother. But while his memory of how he learned his songs is vague, his feeling about them certainly is not. After I had pestered him awhile about the origin of a song, he leaned forward in his chair and said to me in a loud voice, "These are all real songs. These ain't none of your old humbug, hop-and-go-fetch-it dancing songs." He seldom listens to his radio and vows that he never learned a song from a book, just from people who sing. It was in 1920, he says, that he learned his last new song.
Fuzzy was born in Galalee, Wayne County, Pensyl vania. His mother was born in the same town of German parents and his father, whom he never saw, was also American born. He traveled across northern Pennsylvania with his mother and step-father, Thomas Clark. They were always quite poor, his step-father taking odd jobs, hauling lumber, logs and bark, and
then moving on. Fuzzy worked, as he says, ever since he was old enough to hold onto a line, and everywhere he went he sang and learned new songs. Most of his sentimental songs were learned from semiprofessional performers. Of one of these songs he says, "I learned that when I used to go over there to Sio and play second rhythm. They was always singing to these dances, you know. Old fashion days, the old fashion dances, they used to sing and dance. We had a helluva time." Most of his tall tales and lumbermen and sailor songs he learned "evenings, just singing evenings in the lobby of the camp (lumber camp). We used to get together, thirty, forty of us and sing songs till midnight." Of other songs he would say, "I learned that when I was on my mother's knee."
The way I came to meet Mr. Fuzzy Barhight is any folklorist's dream come true. Fuzzy had gotten in touch with a Mrs. Pawling, a schoolteacher whom he knew, and persuaded her to write a letter to Cornell University. The letter read that Mr. Barhight knew over a hundred old songs and didn't want to die without leaving them after him. The letter finally reached Mrs. Edith M. Fox, curator of the Cornell University Archives, who contacted me, and a month later, in March, Mrs. Fox and I drove out eighty
miles to the west of Ithaca to Fuzzy's place. We found Fuzzy waiting for us, all ready to sing, full of energy and extremely friendly. In the year I have known him I have never known him to be any different. He loves people, is always asking me to bring a group of friends alone, and can sing without stopping for hours on end at the sace sitting, instructing me when to turn my tape machine on and off. He delights in scolding and teasing me, especially about the questions I ask him. For example when I asked him to tell me what a raftsman was, he answered, "Way up to college and she can't tell me what a raftsman is?
What are they learning you up there? You come up to the country before you graduate and then you'll commence to know something. A raftsman is a man who run logs down the stream years ago when there was logs big enough to run down the stream." An afternoon with Fuzzy is enough to wear me out. I am sure there are few men more alive than he. His imagination,
his sense of humor, and his energy are all in his songs.
SIDE I, Band 6: POOR ANTHONY ROLLY (Child #278) Francis James Child included this ballad in his great textual compilation under the title "The Farmer's Curst Wife." It is probable that in the earliest forms of the ballad, the farmer made a pact with the
devil in order to secure help to plow his fields. In return, the devil was to receive the soul of some member of the family at a later date. Modern forms of the ballad do not relate this incident, but merely have the devil calling on the farmer to claim some
member of the family. In this varsion, the farmer instructs the devil to take his wife instead of his son; in most versions, the devil takes the wife by choice.
As long as the battle of the sexes continue, songs with motifs such as this will be sung. It is no surprise, then, that this ballad has had a long history and is one of the most widely collected ballads in the United States. As with most American versions, the ballad ends on a humorous philosophic note extolling one of womankind's most unique virtues. Of entertainine interest is the almost numberless varieties of refrains recorded with this ballad. In this respect, the version sung here is of special note, as the "Anthony Rolly" refrain, most often found appended to the nursery song "Frog Went A-Courting", has only been collected once previously as part of "The Farmer's Curst Wife."
There was a man when he was first born,
Poor old Anthony Rolly,
There was a man when he was first born,
He had no horse to plow his corn.
With his right leg, left leg, upper leg, under leg,
Poor old Anthony Rolly.
So he hitched the pig with his old cow,
And plowed the corn, the Devil knows how.
Well the Devil he came to the old man's plow,
"It's your oldest son that I'm after now."
"You cannot have my oldest son,
You'll have to take the old woman or none."
So the Devil he took her all onto his back,
And like an old fool he went carrying his pack.
Well, he carried her over three fields more,
At length he came to his own trap door.
There sat little Devils all bound in chain,
She upped with her shovel and knocked out their brains.
Then one little Devil all with a red cap,
She upped with her shovel and gave him a slap.
Then three little Devils peeped over the wall,
Crying: "Carry her back, she'll brain us all."
So the Devil he took her all onto his back,
And like an old fool he went carrying her back.
Well, he carried her over three fields more,
At length he came to the old man's door.
Now that shows that the women they're worse than the men,
They'll to to hell and come back again.