The Devil and the Farmer's Wife- Workman (KY) 1978 REC
[From Workman's 1978 Rounder LP “Mother Jones' Will.” Certainly he learned this much earlier but there is no date given.]
Nimrod Workman (November 5, 1895 - November 26, 1994) autobiographical remarks:
My people came up into Kentucky to settle when there were no houses in the place at all - just hundreds of acres of ground in the wilderness. Maybe your nearest neighbors would be twenty-five or thirty miles away. Those were hard times back then - and dangerous times too. Back there in Martin County is a place they call Panther Lick. My grandfather was living there when he heard this hollering and screaming and he peeked out of the cracks and saw a big black panther coming out of that lick across a big high log. And just then a big bear had come in at the other end and they met plumb in the middle of the log, each trying to make the other back up. They locked into it and that panther ripped that bear's belly open until his guts fell out, but that old bear kept a-hugging on him until they fell off that log. They both died right there in that lick: the panther hugged up in the bear's clutches. And that's where my people settled in Kentucky.
One night my grandmother was sitting in the cabin all alone and she heard this panther a-hollering out around the house. There was a hole into that log house right near the chimney and this old panther started to run his paw up through there to get at her while she's knitting. Well, my grandmother just grabbed his leg behind his paw, and set her broom up against it and rolled her yarn all around that broom and the panther's claw. The old panther, he worked all the rest of the night to get his leg out and when my grandpa came back the next morning, he killed it.
My grandfather Workman had come from England and fought back in that Old Rebel and Yankee war. He drawed a pension of fifteen dollars from whichever side he was on. He'd gotten one of his eyes put out fighting around a tree with a tomahawk or something like that. I was named after him and he'd always take my part in any kind of argument. When he was real old and any of the kids tried to gang up and were getting too hot for me, I'd run up to him and he'd whop them with his cane. I had a lot of brothers and sisters and we had happy times back then and there was no aggravation like there is now. Of course we had to work hard all the time, but when we did get time to play, we'd really enjoy it. We'd play right out through the woodland, stuff like All Around the Mulberry Bush, Dog Chews the Bone, and all sorts of funny games like that. And we'd cut big grapevines loose and swing way out over the hillsides on them.
I started humming these songs off when I was about twelve years old. Most of my old-time singing I got from my people on both sides. Maybe I'd take some of one song and some of another and put them together - just cut and dry them myself you know, and that way I'd make a pretty good song out of them. And I used to attend those real old-timey churches when I was a boy and I learned a lot of these Christian songs too. I used to play a French harp but these old-timey Baptists didn't believe in music in church and, if you mentioned it to them, they'd say that 'way back music was hung up on the willows and done away with. The only thing they believed in was music and prayer.
When I got a little older and was working in the mines, me and lots of the single fellers would buy a half gallon of moonshine with our scrip and go sit on the railroad tracks or just somewhere in the mouth of the holler. And they'd give me a nick of liquor to sing some. I had a good clear voice back then and I could pitch her out there. I'd sing these old love songs and they'd get me to sing Christian songs too. Just sitting out there singing until maybe one or two o'clock of the night.
The Devil and the Farmer's Wife (Child 278, Roud 160). This old humorous song (Child: The Farmer's Curst Wife) is extremely popular in America and pops up in a wide variety of settings, including versions with whistling refrains (see Hobert Stallard on MTCD505-6 and his daughter Nova Baker on Rounder 8047)). Horton Barker's Library of Congress version (which resembles the 78 recording by Bill and Belle Reed) is justly celebrated (a later version appears on Folkways 2362). Texas Gladden and Jean Ritchie supply nice versions on Rounder 1800 and Folkways 2302 respectively.
"Hey, old devil, don't you take my son,"
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day.
"There's work on the farm that has to be done"
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day.
"It's not your oldest son I want
It's your nagging old wife that I'll take with me."
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day,
Come a rum dum diddle I day.
Well he carried her down to the forks of the road
Come a rum dum diddle I day
Said "Hey old woman you're a heck of a load"
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Come a rum dum diddle I day.
Three little devils come around with a ball and chain
She upped with a shovel, knocked out their brains
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Come a rum dum diddle I day.
Three little devils peeped over the wall
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Rum dum diddle I day
Three little devils peeped over the wall
Said "Take her back Daddy, she's a-killing us all"
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Come a rum dum diddle I day.
Well, he picked her up all on his back
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Come a rum dum diddle I day
Picked her up all on his back
Looked like Tom Tinker went wagging her back
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Cum a rum dum diddle I day.
Says "Here's your wife and I wish you well
She killed all my children and she tore up Hell"
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Come a rum dum diddle I day.
The old man took off around the hill
Come a rum dum diddle I day
Said "The devil won't have her
I'm damned if I will."
Come a rum dum diddle I diddle I day
Come a rum dum diddle I day.