There Was an Old Farmer- Evilsizer (MI) 1934 Gardner A
[My title. From Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering, Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan (1939). This version uses the common refrain from Child 277 Wife Wrapt in Wether Skin.]
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"3335 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 "Keliyburnbraes" (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 A was sung in 1934 by Mr. Otis Evilsizer, Alger.
A. [There Was an Old Farmer]
1 There was an old farmer who had a farm,
Jack a fie gent to rosim Marie;
He had no horse to plow his farm,
As the dew blows over the green vallee.
2 The old farmer hitched up his old sow to plow;
She went here and there, and the devil knows where.
3 The devil came to the farmer one day;
Says, "One of your family I'm going to take away."
4 "Well," said the old farmer, "I'm all undone,
For the devil he's after my only son."
5 "It's not your only son that I want,
But your darned old scolding wife I'll have."
6 "It's take her, old devil, with all my heart,
And I hope to God you never will part."
7 So he picked her up with his old broken back,
And over the fields he went klickety-klack.
8 He carried her over two fields of rye,
She up with her foot and kicked out his eye.
9 He carried her over two fields or more
Before he came to hell's back door.
10 One little devil all bound in wire,
She up with her foot and kicked him in the fire.
11 Another little devil all bound in chains,
She up with her foot and kicked out his brains.
12 Another little devil from behind the wall
Says, "Take her away or she'll murder us all."
13 So he picked her up with his old broken back,
And away he went, went a-totin' her back. [1]
14 "O here's your old wife all sound and well;
If we'd kept her much longer, she'd lathered all hell."
15 So you see the women are worse than the men;
If they go to hell, they'll come back again.
My footnote:
1. For a rhyme: And away he went, like a pedlar with his sack.