Kitty Lorn- Lewis (VA) 1931 Davis DD
[Similiar to Davis DD this version uses the "Kitty Alone" (Kitty Lorn) refrain. Both DAvis CC and DD are from a similiar source. This refrain is found attached to nonsense lyrics and is related to the Martin Said to His Man and Froggie Went A-Courtin' song forms- both of great antiquity. Here's one example from the Brown Collection of NC Folklore:
1. Saw a crow a-flyin' low.
Kitty alone, kitty alone,
Saw a crow a-flyin' low,
Kitty alone alee.
Saw a crow a-flyin' low,
And a cat a-spinnin' tow,
Rockabye baby bye, rockabye baby bye.
R. Matteson 2013]
Davis' notes from the 1960 book, More Ballad of Virginia:
THE WIFE WRAPT IN WETHER'S SKIN (Child, No. 277)
The title seems to have been adapted by Child from the old tale which he supposes to be the sorrce of the ballad, about "the wife lapped in Morrell skin," Morrell being the husband's old horse flayed to excuse the wife-beating. The title does not appear as a local title in any of Child's versions. "Sweet Robin," "The Cooper of Fife," and first lines are the only titles found there.
As main for this ballad Child prints five texts (A-E), all from Scottish sources, and summarizes the story in this fashion (V, 104): "Robin has married a wife of too high kin to bake or brew, wash or wring. He strips off a wether's skin and lays it on her back, or prins [that is, pins] her in it. He dares not beat her, for her proud kin, but he may beat the wether's skin, and does. This makes in ill wife good."
Not one of these Scottish texts, despite the general outline of their story, bears much formal or verbal resemblance to the well-known American versions. It is therefore a relief to find in the final Additions and Corrections (V' 304-5) two additional texts, one from Massachusetts, with a "Gentle Jenny rosemaree" refrain, and one from Suffolk, England, beginning, "There was a man lived in the West" with a "clashmo" refrain, which immediately suggest two of the types of the ballad found in America, including several of those here printed.
Although the ballad is apparently not known on the Continent or in other languages, it arrives in more recent British tradition, but hardly vigorously. It has been found in the English counties of Somerset and Lancashire, in addition to Suffolk (see above); and Greig-Keith (pp. 218-19) print one text and three tunes and report no others as collected but refer in their headnote to "this exceedingly popular song"--as indeed, one would expect "The Cooper of Fife" to be in Scotland. But the evidence of Old Country popularity is lacking. The ballad seems to have achieved a somewhat wider distribution in America, but still there is no multiplicity of published texts or tunes. Here the statistics of some representative collections:
Cox (I), five texts, no tune, plus cox (2), three texts and one tune; Barry, two texts, one tune; TBVa, twelve texts, two tunes; Sharp Karpeles, five texts, five tunes; Belden, two texts, one tune; Randolph, one text, one tune; Henry, one text, no tune; Hudson one text, no tune; Morris, one text, one tune; Brown, four texts, four tunes; Eddy, no text or tune; Gardner-Chickering, no text or tune; and so on. As to geographical distribution, the ballad has bean collected in the following states: Maine, Vermont, connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, North carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska. There are a good many gaps in the list.
Belden (p. 92) has suggested the grouping of texts, roughly by refrains, as follows- (1) the "Cooper of Fife" form, exemplfied by Child C and D, the Lancashire, Aberdeenshire, and Connecticut texts; (2) the "clish-a-ma-cringo" form, exemplified by Child's Suffolk version and TBVa A; (3) the "Iero" form exemplified only by Sharp's Somerset version [see Flanders N] ; (4) the "Dandoo" form, exemplified by most of the TBVa texts except A and by most of the other southern and Midwestern texts; and (5) the "rosemary" form, exemplified by Barry A and B and by most of the other New England texts.
Though we shall undertake no accurate count, it seems obvious that the "Dandoo" form is most common in America, the "rosemary" next, the "clish-a-ma-cringo" third, the "Cooper of Fife" fourth, and the "Iero" so far unknown [Flanders N]. The regional preferences are also of interest, especially New England preference for the "rosemary" form, and the South's preference for the "Dandoo" form, with the "clish-a-ma clingo" next.
Most of these refrains appear to be, so far as is known mere nonsense refrains, or rather, sound rather than sense refrains. Some of them (see below) are elaborately interwoven with the meager two-line text, piling up the jargon at the end for sound effect. There is, however, one exception: the "rosemary" refrain, with its varying forms approximating the "Jenny for gentle Rose Marie," refrain of AA, below. This refrain, incidentally, may be borrowed from "The Elfin Knight" (Child, No. 2; MTBVa, No. 2, which see) or the two ballads share the refrain. Though the singers seem to understand the line as a combination of proper names and adjectives, it is likely that the original line (preserved in some variants) was "juniper, gentian, and rosemary," a plant-burden which the superstitious supposed would keep off the devil. Miss Broadwood (JEFSS, II, 12-15) suggests that when a demon disappeared from a song, the plant-burden remained. Barry (pp. 324-25) further suggests that "the ungentle wife may have been regarded as possessed of an evil spirit, so that not only the plant-burden, but also the beating would be part of an exorcising ceremony." But this seems to read too much into the ballad before us in the effort to explain its burden.
Of the twelve Virginia texts previously published in TBVa, eight have the "Dandoo" refrain, one the "clish-a-ma-clingo," two are mixed or irregular, and one is without refrain. Of course, all the "Dandoo" texts have some approximation to the "clish-a-ma- clingo" line following the first repetition of the first line of each stanza. The longer refrains following the final lines are extremely varied and extremely nonsensical. Of the seven additional Virginia texts listed in FSVa, one has the "rosemary" refrain, two have new refrains of "Kitty Lorn" or a mixture of "Kitty alone" and "Lorum dan dorum," the rest have "Dandoo."
Of the five Virginia texts and two tunes here printed, AA is especially interesting, not only as the only "rosemary" text so far found in Virginia, but because it is the only Virginia text which makes clear the wife's reformation. It is closest to the Child, V, 304, text from Massachusetts and to Barry A, and is the sole representative here of Coffin's Story Type A. BB, from a member of a famous fiddling and singing family, is of the "Dandoo", type, with a good tune. CC, with an exceptionally fine tune, shifts the refrain lines completely in the third stanza, from the "Lorum, dan do-rum," sequence to the "Kitty alone" sequence. DD, from the same neighborhood and probably representing the same version, has the "Kitty Lorn" sequence throughout. It is given especially for comparison with CC. EE is a later-collected and somewhat shortened form of the version from the same family printed as Brown A (II, 186). It is given especially for comparison with Brown A. Note that all the below texts except AA end directly with the husband's jesting or defensive reply about tanning his old wether's skin and do not suggest that the wife has reformed. coffin, rather unaccountably, does not provide for this story type, which is the usual one for the "Dandoo" texts. See the individual headnotes, below.
Because of minor variations in repeated lines and in refrain lines, the texts are given in full, not in compressed form. See especially CC.
For further discussion concerning this ballad and its sub-divisions, see the article by William H. Jansen in the Hoosier Folklore Bulletin, IV ( September, 1941), 41.
DD. "Kitty Lorn." Collected by Miss Juliet Fauntleroy, of Altavista, Va. Contributed by Mrs. Merkley Keesee Lewis, near Castle Craig, Va. Campbell County. September 26, 1931. Mrs. Lewis learned it from her father, Meekin Keesee. This text is quite close to CC, except that Abner Keesee uses the "lorum dan dorum" refrain in the first two stanzas, and then shifts to the "Kitty lone" refrain for the rest of the ballad. CC is two stanzas longer than DD. The text is printed especially for comparison with CC,
frorn the same locality but with the shifting refrain lines.
1 He come whistling from his plow,
Kitty Lorn, Kitty Lorn,
He come whistling from his plow,
Kitty Lorn and I,
He come whistling from his plow,
"Wife, is breakfast ready now?"
Jack-a-Magees and Kitty Lorn,
Kitty Lorn and I.
2 "There's a piece of bread lies on the shelf,"
Kitty Lorn, Kitty Lorn,
"There's a piece of bread lies on the shelf,"
Kitty Lorn and I,
"There's a piece of bread lies on the shelf,
If you want any better you can get it yourself,"
Jack-a-Magees and Kitty Lorn,
Kitty Lorn and I.
3 He throwed the skin on his wife's back,
Kitty Lorn, Kitty Lorn,
He throwed the skin on his wife's back,
Kitty Lorn and I,
He throwed the skin on his wife's back,
And two little hickories went whickety-whack,
Jack-a-Magees and Kitty Lorn,
Kitty Lorn and I.
4 "I'll tell my mammy and daddy too,"
Kitty Lorn, Kitty Lorn,
"I'll tell my mammy and daddy too,"
Kitty Lorn and I,
"I'll tell my mammy and daddy too,
The way I've been abused by you,"
Jack-a-Magees and Kitty Lorn,
Kitty Lorn and I.
5. "Go tell your mammy and all your kin,"
Kitty Lorn, Kitty Lorn,
"Go tell your mammy and all your kin,"
Kitty Lorn and I,
"Go tell your mammy and all your kin,
And then I'll whip your wether's skin,"
Jack-a-Magees and Kitty Lorn,
Kitty Lorn and I.