Old Bangum- Dee Hicks (TN) Collected 1977
[Collected in 1977 by "Lighter" and posted in the Digital Tradition Forum. Hicks was also recorded by Bobby Fulcher on County Records in 1980, ‘Five Miles Out of Town’.
Dee Hicks born in Fentress County in 1905. His father was Daniel "Dan'l" Hicks (1868-1948), fiddler, balladier and hunter. Joseph, Dee's grandfather, was born in c.1816 on Sulfer Creek, nine miles east of Burksville, KY, and came to Tennessee in 1817 where he died in 1892); paternal great-grandparents were John Hicks (b. 1780 in North Carolina, died in TN 1848, lived in by 1830, probably moved in 1817 as well) and Chrissie (Mills) Hicks (b. 1770), and maternal great-grandparents were Wylie Downs and Chrissie (Nobles) Downs.
Between the two of them, Dee Hicks and his wife Delta contributed 400 songs and tunes to the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture. It's not clear is there's a connection with the Hicks family from North Carolina but there doesn't seem to be one. Samuel Hick moved from NC to Tennessee but this was circa 1880.
This version is related to Child C and has the "wild woman" stanzas.
R. Matteson 2014]
Old Bangum- Dee Hicks (Tennessee) Collected 1977; posted in the Digital Tradition Forum.
Collected from Dee Hicks, who was in his late 60s or early 70s, of Tenchtown, Tenn., in 1977. He said he learned it from his father - I'd guess around 1915.
1. There was a hunter in the green
Dillum down dillum
There was a hunter in the green
Kummy koo kwan
He spied a lady up a tree
Kummy koo cuddle dan
Killy ko kwan
What keeps you here, my gay laydee?...
I'm kept here by a wild boar....
How many has he killed of thee?...
Oh, he's killed my lord and thirty-three....
How can I this wild boar see?
Dillum down dillum
How can I this wild boar see?
Kummy koo kwan
Just put your horn up to your mouth
And blow the wind both north and south
Kummy koo, cuddle dan,
Killy ko kwan
He put his horn up to his mouth...
And blew the wind both north and south....
This wild boar came with such a slash...
That he cleared his way through oak and ash....
Old Bangum caught him by the tail...
And with a hick'ry did him frail....
They fit four hours in the day...
Oh, till [at] last that wild boar ran away....
Old Bangum tracked him to his den...
Thar lay the bones of a thousand men!...
(Then) Old Bangum drew his wooden knife...
He rid that wild boar of its life....
(Then) there came a wild woman out of the woods...
She says, Now you've killed my sportin' pig!...
Thar is three things I'll have of thee...
That's your horse and hound and gay laydee....
Oh, then she made a pass at him...
But he split her from the mouth to chin...