Farmer's Curst Wife- Barlow (UT) c1888 Hubbard A
From: Ballads and Songs from Utah; Hubbard
THE FARMER'S CURST WIFE
The A version in Child, No. 278, which includes a chorus of whistlers instead of a refrain is similar to the A text from Utah. Compare the A text from Michigan in Gardner and Chickering, pp. 373-378, and the A and B texts from Florida in Morris, pp. 323-325. For additional texts, references and discussion, see Davis, pp. 505-515; Barry, Eckstorm and Smyth, pp. 325-333; Sharp, I, 275-281, 421; Betden, pp. 94-97: Brewster, pp. 155-156; Randolph, I, 189-193; Owens, pp. 54-56.
A. "The Farmer's Curst-Wife." Sung by Mrs. Susie S. Barlow of Salt Lake City, Oct. 18, 1948 Her father frequently sang this ballad to his children when they lived in Richville about sixty years ago. The first line and refrain are repeated in each stanza.
There was an old man, he bought him a farm.
Fi diddle fi diddle fi dum.
There was an old man, he bought him a farm.
He had no oxen to carry it on.
Ta ma twice fi do fi diddle fi do fi dum.
So he yoked his pigs unto his plow,
And he plowed up the piece that the devil knows how.
As he was jogging his plow one day,
The devil he chanced to come that way.
"Lord!" cries the old man, "I'm surely undone;
The devil has come for my oldest son."
"It's not your oldest son that I crave,
But your old scoiding wife and 'tis her I will have."
"Oh take her, oh take her with all my heart,
And I hope that with her you never will part."
The old devil he shouldered her onto his back
And like an old pedlar went lugging his pack.
He carried her till he came to hell's gate;
He then set her down and he made her walk straight.
Two little devils came rattling their chains.
She took off her slipper and beat our their brains.
Two more little devils peeped over the wall,
Singing, "Take her away, dad, or she'll murder us all."
The old devil he shouldered her onto his back,
And like an old fool he went lugging her back.
He came to where the old man was jogging the plow,
Singing, "Take her, oh take her, I won't have her now."
"Lord," cries the old man, "She was born for a curse;
She's been to hell and she's ten times worse."
You can see that the women are worse than the men,
For they go to hell and get kicked out again.