199
Father, Father, I Am Married
This is the only representative in our collection of an English
ballad of the fabliau type, 'Will the Weaver,' current more or less
both in England and in this country. See Mackenzie's headnote
BSSNS 328 and Williams's FSUT io6. The question about who
shall wear the breeches appears also in other songs that have noth-
ing to do with a weaver: the English 'Struggle for the Breeches'
(FSUT 268-71) and 'Devilish Mary' reported from Florida and
Louisiana by the Lomaxes (OSC 136-8). Mrs. Sutton, who seems
to have contributed our fragment, remarks that the singer. Mrs.
Silas Buchanan of Horse Creek, Ashe county, "sang snatches of
one very coarse song with a catchy tune that I've heard a lot up
here. ... It has no name, nor is it sung at parties. I've stayed
at three places where it was sung before breakfast." The two
stanzas are both in the mouth of the married man but are not con-
nected ; the first is addressed to his father, the second to his wife.
* For "She" read "That."
' Here "hook" and "line" should be transposed, as the rhyme shows.
* This word is hardly construable here. Perhaps we should read
"This" for "With a."
478 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
1 Father, father, I am married.
Would that longer I had tarried ;
For my wife she does declare
That the britches she will wear.
2 Wife, O wife, make no objection ;
You must live by my direction.
Wife, O wife, I do declare
That the britches I will wear !
----------------
199
Father, Father, I Am Married
'Father, Father, I Am Married.' Sung by Mrs. Silas Buchanan. Recorded as
MS score at Lenoir, Caldwell county, between 1921 and 1936.
Scale: Mode III. Tonal Center: c. Structure: aa^bc (2,2,2,2) z= a^> ''4,4).