Ole Bangum- Dashiell (Va.) 1921 Davis F
[Reprinted by Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia (1929) from Dorothy Scarborough 'On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs' Harvard University Press p 51 (1925). Also reprinted in Alan Lomax 'Folk Songs of North America' Doubleday 1960, p 510. Scarborough's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
From Scarborough's comment (On the Trail, 1925; reprint 1963, pp. 50-52):
"Another delightful old song, of ancient tradition, Old Bangum, was given me by Mrs. Landon Randolph Dashiell, of Richmond, Virginia, who sends it "as learned from years of memory and iteration." The music was written from Mrs Dashiell's singing by Shepard Webb, also of Richmond. Mrs. Dashiell says that her Negro mammy used to sing it to her, and that the song was so indissolubly associated with the sleepy time that she doubted if she could sing it for me unless she took me in her lap and rocked me to sleep by it.
"Professor Kittredge speaks of this song in a discussion in the Journal of American Folklore. Mrs. Case says: "Both General James Taylor and President Madison were great-great-grandchildren of James Taylor, who came from Carlisle, England, to Orange County, Virginia, in 1638, and both were hushed to sleep by their Negro mammies with the strains of Bangum and the Boar." The version he gives is different in some respects from that given by Mrs. Dashiell."
F. "Ole Bangum"- Sung by Mrs. Landon Randolph Dashiell of Richmond, Va., 1921 Davis F
1. "Ole Bangum will you hunt an' ride?"
Dillum down dillum
"Ole Bangum will you hunt an' ride?"
Dillum down.
"Ole Bangum will you hunt an' ride,
Sword and pistol by your side?"
Cubby ki, cuddle dum,
Killy quo quam.
2. There is a wild boar in these woods
Eats men's bones and drinks their blood
3. Ole Bangum drew his wooden[1] knife
And swore he'd take the wild boar's life
Old Bangum went to the wild boar's den
And found the bones of a thousand men
They fought four hours in that day
The wild boar fled and slunk away
Ole Bangum, did you win or lose?
He swore, by Jove, he'd won his shoes
1. Woodsman's knife (see Davis C)