Our Good Man (Found a Horse in the Stable) - Sandelin (VT) c.1940s Flanders F
[Flanders' title. From: Flanders' Ancient Ballads IV, 1965. Her notes follow. This is a standard fragment of the "horse in the stable" verse (there are four verses that equal one complete "night" in this case).
R. Matteson 2013]
Our Goodman (Child 274)
Mrs. Sullivan's statement that "Our Goodman" is a drinking song, into which is "put anything they like," is an accurate description of this usually bawdy piece. It has been known in Britain at least since the end of the eighteenth century and a German translation of an English broadside started its spread across Europe during the early nineteenth century. Generally, the American texts are Scottish in form, like Child A, but as a rule they attempt to soften the cuckolding of the husband by making him a drunkard. Note, however, Flanders G.
See Coffin, 144-b (American); Dean-Smith, 70 (English); and Greig and Keith, 214-6 (Scottish) for a start on a bibliography. Child, V, 88 f., discusses the use of the motif in literary and folk tales.
Many informants refuse to sing this ballad on moral grounds, though the lines that have caused them to feel this may are not to be found in print.
F. 'Our Good Man' (Found a Horse in the Stable)- Fragment remembered, by H. S. Sandelin of Springfield, VT sung by his wife's stepfather, John Heath, formerly of northern Vermont, now of Waterville, Qubec. H. H. F., Collector
. . . .
. . . .
Found a horse in the stable
Where his own horse ought to be.
"Wife dear, wife dear,
. . . .
. . . .
. . . .
"You old fool, you blind fool,
Can't you ever see
This is a cow
That my mother sent to me?"
. . . .
. . . .
And a saddle on a cow
I never saw before.