No. 275: Get Up and Bar the Door
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnote (The footnote is found at the end of Child's Narrative)
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Texts A-C (Changes for A b are found in End-Notes.)
5. End-Notes
6. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 275. Get Up and Bar the Door
A. Roud No. 115: Get Up and Bar the Door (97 Listings)
2. Sheet Music: 275. Get Up and Bar the Door (Bronson's music examples and texts)
3. US and Canadian Versions:
4. English and Other Versions (Including Child versions A- C )
Child's Narrative: 275. Get Up and Bar the Door
A. a. 'Get up and bar the Door,' Herd, The Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 330; Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 159.
b. [Pinkerton], Select Scotish Ballads, 1783, II, 150.
B. 'John Blunt,' Macmath Manuscript, p. 74.
C. 'Johnie Blunt,' Johnson's Museum, IV, 376, No 365, 1792.
The copy in Johnson's Museum, volume three, No 300, p. 310, 1790, is A a with two slight changes; that in Ritson's Scotish Song, I, 226, 1794, is A a. A b is substituted for A a in the third edition of Herd, 1791, II, 63. Christie, II, 262, who follows A a, but with changes, gives as a refrain, "common in the North of Scotland from time immemorial,"
And the barring o our door,
Weel, weel, weel!
And the barring o our door, weel!
A, B. A housewife is boiling puddings anight; a cold wind blows in, and her husband bids her bar the door; she has her hands in her work and will not. They come to an agreement that whoever speaks first shall bar the door. Two belated travellers are guided to the house by the light which streams through an opening. They come in, and, getting no reply to their questions or response to their greetings, fall to eating and drinking what they find; the goodwife thinks much, but says naught. One of the strangers proposes to the other to take off the man's beard, and he himself will kiss the goodwife. Hot water is wanting (for scalding), suggests the second; but the boiling pudding-bree will serve, answers the first. The goodman calls out, Will ye kiss my wife and scald me? and having spoken the first word has to bar the door.
C. In C man and wife are in bed, and the travellers haul the woman out and lay her on the floor: this makes the husband give tongue.
Stenhouse notes that this ballad furnished Prince Hoare with the principal scene in his musical entertainment of "No Song, no Supper," produced in 1790, and long a favorite on the stage. (Musical Museum, 1853, IV, 292.)
This tale is one of a group which may or may not have had a single archetype. Of the varieties, that which comes nearest is the first story in Straparola's Eighth Day. Husband and wife are sitting near the entrance of their house one night; the husband says, It is time to go to bed, shut the door; she says, Shut it yourself. They make a compact that the one who speaks first shall shut the door. The wife, tired of silence and growing sleepy, goes to bed; the husband stretches himself on a bench. A gentleman's servant, whose lantern has been put out by the wind, seeing the door open, asks for a light. There is no reply. Advancing a little way into the house, he finds the man lying on the bench with his eyes open, but can get no word from him though he shakes him. Looking round, he sees the woman in bed and addresses her, but she is as dumb as her husband; he gets into the bed. The woman says nothing till the intruder goes away; then calls out, A pretty man you, to leave the door open all night and let people get into your bed. Fool, he says, now go shut the door. The same, with insignificant divergences, in L'Élite des Contes du Sieur d'Ouville, Rouen, 1699, I, 159.
A wedding-feast over, neither bridegroom nor bride will consent to shut the street-door; the lady proposes that the one who speaks first shall do this, to which the bridegroom agrees. They sit looking at each other in silence for two hours. Thieves, seeing the door open, come in, pillage the house, and even strip the young pair of everything valuable that they have on them, but neither says a word. In the morning a patrol of police find the house door open, enter, and make an inspection. The chief demands an explanation of the state of things; neither man nor woman vouchsafes a response, and he orders their heads off. The executioner is beginning with the husband; the wife cries out, Spare him! the husband exclaims, You have lost, go shut the door. (The Arabian tale of Sulayman Bey and the Three Story-Tellers, cited by Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, II, 29.)
Hemp-eaters, who have found a sequin and bought a mass of food, quarrel about fastening the gate of a tomb to which they have retired, to gorge unmolested. They come to an agreement that the man who first speaks shall close the gate. They let the victuals stand and sit mute. A troop of dogs rush in and eat all up clean. One of the party had secured some of the provender in advance of the rest, and bits are sticking to his mouth. A dog licks them away, and in so doing bites the lip of the fellow, who, in his pain, raps out a curse on the dog. The rest shout, Get up and shut the gate! (Turkish, Behrnauer, Die vierzig Veziere, p. 175 f.; Gibb, The History of the Forty Vezirs, p. 171 f.)
In the second Pickelheringsspiel, in the first part of Engelische Comedien und Tragedien, 1620, a married pair contend again about the shutting of a door. (R. Köhler; not seen by me.)
In other cases, speaking first entails a penalty different from shutting a door.
A young pair, lying in bed the first night after marriage, engage that whichever of the two gets up first or speaks first shall wash the dishes for a week. The husband, pretending to make his will by the process of expressing by signs his acceptance or rejection of the suggestions of a friend, bequeaths away from his wife a handsome article of dress belonging to her. The wife utters a protest, and has to wash the dishes. (Novelle di Sercambi, ed. d'Ancona, p. 16, No 3, 'De simplicitate viri et uxoris.')
A man complains of dry bread which his wife has given him for his supper. She tells him to get up and moisten it; he bids her do this, but she refuses. It is finally settled that the one that speaks first shall moisten the bread. A visitor comes in and can make neither of them say a word. He kisses the wife, gives the husband a blow on the cheek; no word from either. He makes complaint to the kází; the husband will say nothing when brought before the kází, and is condemned to be hanged. At the moment of execution the wife ejaculates, Alas, my unfortunate husband! You devil, says he, go home and moisten the bread! (An Arabian story in Beloe's Oriental Apologues, cited by Clouston, II, 21.)
A shoemaker and his wife agree that the one who speaks first shall carry back a frying-pan that they have borrowed. A soldier who requires a girth for his horse asks the shoemaker to cut him one, but gets no answer, though he threatens to take off the man's head. Enraged at last, he seizes the shoemaker by the head to do what he had menaced, when the wife cries out, For mercy's sake, don't! Well done! says the husband, now carry back the pan. (Bernoni, Fiabe pop. veneziane, p. 67, No 13, 'La Scomessa;' Crane, Italian Popular Tales, p. 284.)
John makes terms with his wife that which of the two eats first of a soup which she has brought in, or speaks the first word, shall have a beating. William, of whom the husband is jealous, comes to offer his company to go to a fight which is to come off. Man and wife will neither eat nor speak, and he thinks them possessed. He takes the woman by the hand, and she goes with him. John cries out, Let my wife be! She says, John, you have spoken and lost. (Ayrers Dramen, ed. von Keller, III, 2006-08.)
A man who has been taunting his wife as a cackler is challenged by her to a trial at silence. A tinker comes in asking for kettles to mend. He can make neither of them open their mouth, and, as a last resource, offers to kiss the woman. The husband cannot contain himself; the wife says, You have lost! and remains mistress of the house, as she had been before. (Farce d'un Chauldronnifer, Viollet Le Due, Ancien Théatre François, II, 109 ff.) [1]
Footnote:
1. All the above have been cited by Reinhold Köhler, Jahrbuch für romanische u. englische Literatur, XII, 348 f., or by Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, II, 15 ff.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
This tale is one of a group which may or may not have had a single archetype. Of the varieties, that which comes nearest is the first story in Straparola's Eighth Day. The story is well known in the East (see, for example. Forty Vezirs, Gibb, p. 171) and elsewhere (see Crane, Italian Popular Tales, p. 284).
Child's Ballad Texts
'Get up and bar the Door'- Version A a; Child 275 Get Up and Bar the Door
a. Herd, The Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 330.
1 It fell about the Martinmas time,
And a gay time it was then,
When our goodwife got puddings to make,
And she's boild them in the pan.
2 The wind sae cauld blew south and north,
And blew into the floor;
Quoth our goodman to our goodwife,
'Gae out and bar the door.'
3 My hand is in my hussyfskap,
Goodman, as ye may see;
An it shoud nae be barrd this hundred year,
It's no be barrd for me.'
4 They made a paction tween them twa,
They made it firm and sure,
That the first word whaeer shoud speak,
Shoud rise and bar the door.
5 Then by there came two gentlemen,
At twelve o clock at night,
And they could neither see house nor hall,
Nor coal nor candle-light.
6 'Now whether is this a rich man's house,
Or whether is it a poor?'
But neer a word wad ane o them speak,
For barring of the door.
7 And first they ate the white puddings,
And then they ate the black;
Tho muckle thought the goodwife to hersel,
Yet neer a word she spake.
8 Then said the one unto the other,
'Here, man, tak ye my knife;
Do ye tak aff the auld man's beard,
And I'll kiss the goodwife.'
9 'But there's nae water in the house,
And what shall we do than?'
'What ails ye at the pudding-broo,
That boils into the pan?'
10 O up then started our goodman,
An angry man was he:
'Will ye kiss my wife before my een,
And scad me wi pudding-bree?'
11 Then up and started our goodwife,
Gied three skips on the floor:
'Goodman, you've spoken the foremost word,
Get up and bar the door.'
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'John Blunt'- Version B; Child 275 Get Up and Bar the Door
Macmath Manuscript p. 74. "From the singing of Miss Jane Webster, 15th October, 1886, and 26th August, 1887, who learned it at Airds of Kells, Kirkcudbrightshire, many years ago, from James McJannet."
1 There leeved a wee man at the fit o yon hill,
John Blunt it was his name, O
And he selld liquor and ale o the best,
And bears a wondrous fame. O
Tal lara ta lilt, tal lare a lilt,
Tal lara ta lilt, tal lara.
2 The wind it blew frae north to south,
It blew into the floor;
Says auld John Blunt to Janet the wife,
Ye maun rise up and bar the door.
3 'My hans are in my husseyskep,
I canna weel get them free,
And if ye dinna bar it yersel
It'll never be barred by me.'
4 They made it up atween them twa,
They made it unco sure,
That the ane that spoke the foremost word
Was to rise and bar the door.
5 There was twa travellers travelling late,
Was travelling cross the muir,
And they cam unto wee John Blunt's,
Just by the light o the door.
6 'O whether is this a rich man's house,
Or whether is it a puir?'
But never a word would the auld bodies speak,
For the barring o the door.
7 First they bad good een to them,
And syne they bad good morrow;
But never a word would the auld bodies speak,
For the barring o the door, O.
8 First they ate the white puddin,
And syne they ate the black,
And aye the auld wife said to hersel,
May the deil slip down wi that!
9 And next they drank o the liquor sea strong,
And syne they drank o the yill:
'And since we hae got a house o our ain
I'm sure we may tak our fill.'
10 It's says the ane unto the ither,
Here, man, tak ye my knife,
An ye'll scrape aff the auld man's beard,
While I kiss the gudewife.
11 'Ye hae eaten my meat, ye hae drucken my drink,
Ye'd make my auld wife a whore!'
'John Blunt, ye hae spoken the foremost word,
Ye maun rise up and bar the door.'
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'Johnie Blunt'- Version C; Child 275 Get Up and Bar the Door
Johnson's Museum, IV, 376, No 365, 1792. Contributed by Robert Burns.
1 There livd a man in yonder glen,
And John Blunt was his name; O
He maks gude maut and he brews gude ale,
And he bears a wondrous fame. O
2 The wind blew in the hallan ae night,
Fu snell out oer the moor;
'Rise up, rise up, auld Luckie,' he says,
'Rise up, and bar the door.'
3 They made a paction tween them twa,
They made it firm and sure,
Whaeer sud speak the foremost word
Should rise and bar the door.
4 Three travellers that had tint their gate,
As thro the hills they foor,
They airted by the line o light
Fu straught to Johnie Blunt's door.
5 They haurld auld Luckie out o her bed
And laid her on the floor,
But never a word auld Luckie wad say,
For barrin o the door.
6 'Ye've eaten my bread, ye hae druken my ale,
And ye'll mak my auld wife a whore!'
'A ha, Johnie Blunt! ye hae spoke the first word,
Get up and bar the door.'
End-Notes
A. a. Johnson's Museum has these variations:
24. Gat up and.
43. first who should speak the foremost word.
b. 13. That our gudewife had.
14. she boild.
21. wind blew cauld frae east.
24. Get up and.
33. hunder.
34. Its neer be barrd by.
42. word whaever spak.
51. come.
53. Whan they can see na ither house.
54. And at the door they light.
72. And syne.
73. Tho wanting.
81. Then ane unto the ither said.
98. bree.
111. O up then started.
113. you have spak the first word.
O is added to the second and fourth lines for singing, in both of the Museum copies and in B.
Additions and Corrections
P. 95. Add two other Eastern stories: 'The Farmer, his Wife and the Open Door,' in Swynnerton's Indian Nights Entertainment, 1892, p. 14, No 11; 'The Beggar and the Five Muffins' (of the second set), Folklore in Southern India by Pandet Natêsá Sástri, p. 277, No 22, and Tales of the Sun, by Mrs. Howard Kingscote and the same, p. 280, No 25. (Both cited by Mr. Clouston, in The Athenæum, March 18, 1893.)
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P. 96 ff., 281. Add: 'Le fumeur de hachich et sa femme,' cited by R. Basset, Revue des Traditions Populaires, VII, 189. G. L. K. [Also 'The First Fool's Story,' M. Longworth Dames, Balochi Tales, Folk-Lore, IV, 195.]