Hi Randy Dandy O- Fisher (MI) 1934 Gardner C
[My title, no title provided. The version may date back a number of years since it was learned in the informant's childhood. From: Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering, Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan (1939).]
154 THE FARMER'S CURST WIFE
Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan (Child, No. 278)
This is a very old ballad, steeped in demonology, of which many versions have been recorded in America. Child (V, 107-108) notes that "A curst wife who was a terror to demons is a feature in a widely spread and highly humorous tale, Oriental and European." Neither of the two Child texts mentions any earlier dealings between the devil and the farmer, as Michigan E. The Michigan texts A, C, D, and E are all more similar to Child A than to B, which is in Scotch dialect. There is a refrain in Child B, and A has a chorus of whistlers. The refrains of Michigan A, B, and D are quite different from those of other published texts. For British texts see JFSS, II, 184-185, and III, 131-132; and Williams, p. 211. For American texts see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, pp. 325-335 Cox, pp. 164-165; Davis, pp. 505-515, Flanders and Brown, pp. 226-228; Lomax, pp. 110-111; Mackenzie, p 64; and Sharp, I, 275-281. Burns remodeled an old ballad which, his wife said, he gave "a terrible brushing" and which he called "Kellyburnbraes" (JIFSS, XVIII, 27-38). It is somewhat similar to the Michigan text of the same name, but there are many variations in the words, and the refrains are different For comment on the refrain see Introduction, pp. 20-21.
Version C [Hi Randy Dandy O]- Sung in 1934 by Mrs Jim Fisher, near Kalkaska, she learned the song in her childhood from Mr. John Senn, a German farmer, who lived near her home.
1 The farmer he hitched his hog to the plow,
Hi randy dandy O!
Around the field the devil knows how,
Whack falleefalladee O!
2 "O wife, O wife, we are undone;
The devil is after our oldest son."
3 " 'Tain't your oldest son I crave,
But your damned old scolding wife for a slave."
4 "Take her, O take her with all my heart;
I hope you and her will never part."
5 When he entered the hell door,
He took her and slung her across the floor.
6 Another little devil stood over the wall,
Saying, "Take her back, father, she will kill us all."
7 He took her and slung her across his back,
And like a damned fool he went lugging her back.
8 "Farmer, O farmer, I'm sorry to tell
That your old woman reigns bully of hell."