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Poor Old Napper/Old Napper/Rise Old Napper
Old-Time Fiddle breakdown and song USA; England
ARTIST: from Michael Ismerio
Listen: http://www.michaelismerio.com/living_histDocs.html
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: 1846 (Old Napper Rise);
RECORDING INFO: Napper
Sampson, Harvey; & the Big Possum String Band. Flat Foot in the Ashes, Augusta Heritage AHR 004, LP (1986), trk# 1.05
Ismero, Michael (Poor Old Napper)
http://www.michaelismerio.com/living_histDocs.html
Weidlich, Joe (Rise Old Napper) "The Early Minstrel Banjo" Elderly inst.
OTHER NAMES: Old Napper; Rise Old Napper; Old Napper Rise;
SOURCES: Brown; Scaborough; Hudson; Thede; Kuntz; Folk Index;
NOTES: Kuntz gives a brief description: Old‑Time, Breakdown. USA, Oklahoma. G Major. Standard tuning. AABB. See also Harvey Sampson’s “Napper.” Source for notated version: W.S. Collins (Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma) [Thede]. Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; pg. 102.
A similar version found in Brown B was published in Folk-songs of Virginia: by Arthur Kyle Davis 1965 ("Old Napper came to my house") Collected by Miss Juliet Fauntleroy, of Altavista, Va. Contributed by Mr. HW Adams, of Altavista, Va. Campbell County
The song is known as a minstrel song:
Old Napper Rise-1846
I went down to New Orleans
Didn't go to stay
Laid my head in yellow gals lap
Yellow gal fainted away
Scaborough (1922) groups it with Jawbone songs:
I went to old Napper's house,
Old Napper wasn't at home.
I took my seat by the pretty yaller gal
And I picked upon the old jawbone.
In many US versions the old-time song is about a dog, Old Napper. "In Specimens of Mississippi Folklore" by Arthur Palmer Hudson, Mississippi Folk-lore Society 1928 we have the lyrics (see version 4) to OLD NAPPER:
1. Old Napper was a good coon-dog,
Old Trailer was the same;
Old Napper beat old Trailer so bad
It made old Trailer ashame
The song appears in Brown under the title "Taffy was a Welshman."
"Taffy was a Welshman," Roud #19237, is a traditional nusery rhyme with anti-Welsh lyrics that was published c. 1780 in England. Here's some info.
Versions of this rhyme vary, among commmon versions is:
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't in;
I jumped upon his Sunday hat and poked it with a pin.
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a shame;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of lamb;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was away,
I stuffed his socks with sawdust and filled his shoes with clay.
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a cheat,
Taffy came to my house, and stole a piece of meat;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy not there,
I hung his coat and trousers to roast before a fire.
Origins and history
The term "Taffy" may be a merging of the common Welsh name "Dafydd" and the Welsh river "Taff" on which Cardiff is built, and seems to have been in use by the mid-eighteenth century. The rhyme may be related to one published in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, printed in London around 1744, which had the lyrics:
Taffy was born
On a Moon Shiny Night,
His head in the Pipkin,
His Heels upright.
The earliest record we have of the better known rhyme is from Nancy Cock's Pretty Song Book, printed in London about 1780, which had one verse:
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't home;
Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow-bone.
Similar versions were printed in collections in the late eighteenth century, however, in Songs for the Nursery printed in 1805, the first signs of violence were evident, ending with:
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed,
I took the marrow bone and beat about his head.
In the 1840s James Orchard Halliwell collected a two verse version that followed this with:
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not in;
Taffy came to my house and stole a silver pin.
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed;
I took up a poker and threw it at his head.
This version seems to have been particularly popular in the English counties that bordered Wales, where it was sung on Saint David's Day (1 March) complete with leek wearing efigies of Welshmen. The image of thieving Welshmen seems to have begun to die down by the mid-twentieth century, although the insulting rhyme was, still sometimes used along with the name "Taffy" for any Welshman.
A "NAPPER" is also a cheat or thief.
"Poor old Napper" from Brown; Brown Collection: 123 "Taffy Was a Welshman"
The three songs entered here are clearly derived from the familiar Mother Goose rhyme about the thieving Welshman. What appears to he a Negro version of the first of the three has been reported from Mississippi (JAM. xxvui 141), and of the second from Vir-
ginia ( I'", SV 167, TNFS 103); and the first stanza of our B corresponds to stanza 3 of another Virginia song (TNFS 166).
A. 'I Went Down to Suckie's House.' Communicated by Professor M. G. Fulton of Davidson College, in 1915 or thereabouts.
1 I went down lo Suckie's house to get a cup of tea.
What do you s'pose old Stickie had for me?
Chicken feet, sparrowgrass, hominy, and tea.
2 I went down to Suckie's house and fell upon my knees
And I like to laugh myself lo death to hear the turkey sneeze.
B. 'Napper' Contributed in 1914 by C. R. Bagley of Moyock. Currituck county, as a fragment of what are "known among the Negroes as breakdowns."
1. Napper come to my house,
I thought he come to see me.
When I come to find him out
He 'suade my wife to leave me.
Chorus: Break down, Napper, hoo, hoo,
Break down, Napper, hoo.
2 I went to Napper's house;
Ole Napper sick in hed.
I rubbed my hand across his head
And killed ole Napper dead.
3. Goose chewed tobacker.
Duck drinked de wine.
Hog played de *cwards (chords),
In de punkin vine.
C. 'Old Napper.' Contributed by Phil Brandon of Durham. Not dated.
I Napper went a-huntin';
He thought he'd catch a coon.
And when his old dog treed
He treed a mushy-room.
Chorus: Poor old Napper, hoodie dinkey, hoodie dinkey.
Poor old Napper, hoodie dinkey, ha!
2. Napper come to my house.
I thought he come to see me.
When I come to find out
He was persuadin' my wife to leave me.
*So in the manuscript. One supposes it should be "cyards." with the familiar Southern breaking of the vowel after palatals. It will be seen that this final stanza is a form of the jingle dealt with under the title 'Get Along, John, the Day's Work's Done' in the section on Bird and Beast Jingles.
"Poor old Napper" from Scarborough- 1922:
"I have in times past tried to learn something from old darkies here in Charlottesville, darkies even that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson, but without any success. There is one exception to this statement. When I was about ten years old a family from Fluvanna County settled within half a mile of us. They had several slaves who sometimes came to our house at night and gave us music, vocal and instrumental, the instruments being banjo, jawbone of horse, and bones (to crack together, two held in one hand). In singing, the player took any part. He would sing a few words here and there and let his banjo fill in the gap. One piece only do I remember anything about, and all I remember is:
RISE, OLE NAPPER
" Rise, ole Napper, ketch him, ketch him.
Rise, ole Napper, ketch him by de wool.
"This bit of song was sung some seventy years ago."
Another ancient fragment given by Katherine Love, of Virginia, whose grandmother learned it from the slaves on her plantation, mentions the jawbone.
I went to old Napper's house,
Old Napper wasn't at home.
I took my seat by the pretty yaller gal
And I picked upon the old jawbone.
Refrain: Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me.
I'm jus' from Alabama with my banjo on my knee.
"Poor old Napper" from Michael Ismerio
Poor Old Napper
(Fiddle: A and B parts; Part of A)
Napper come to my house
I Thought he came to see me
Then I come to find out
He 'suade my wife to leave me.
CHORUS: Poor Old Napper
Better get a home
Poor Old Napper
Better get a home
(Fiddle: A and B parts; Part of A)
He goes to his cabin
He stays there no more
My rifle shot came flying
And laid him on the floor
CHORUS: Poor Old Napper
Better get a home
Poor Old Napper
Better get a home.
(Fiddle: A and B parts; Part of A)
Napper he had money laying
And ladies so he said
If I had stayed home last night
I would have killed dead.
CHORUS: Poor Old Napper
Better get a home
Poor Old Napper
Better get a home.
(Fiddle: A and B parts; Part of A)
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