Get Up and Bar the Door- Fleming (VA) 1921 Davis
[This is a fragment of Child A. See Davis' notes below:]
GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR
(Child, No. 275)
Only six lines of this ballad, and they somewhat confused, have been found in Virginia, though the excellent West Virginia text, the only other trace of the ballad in American tradition, hails penultimately from Loudoun County, Virginia. The Virginia fragment belongs to the Child A version. The story of this version as summarized by Child, is this: "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 the 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."
The first line of the Virginia fragment seems to have been influenced by the preceding ballad of "Our Goodman"; line 2 is Child A 10, line 2; line 3 is Chiid A ro, line 4; line 4 is Child A 11, line 2; lines 5 and 6 are Child A 10, lines 3 and 4. The Cox text agrees with Child B. The fragment is Virginian by residence rather than by ancestry. The Mr. Robert Fleming who recited it to Mr. Stone learned the ballad in Scotland years ago, but as he had not repeated it for over fifty years, he could recall no more of it. This Scottish ancestry accounts for the dialect spelling.
The fragment was first announced in Bulletin, No. 9, p. 7. Add Cox, No. 185 (Combs, p. 147). No other American variant has been printed; but Jones has found the song in Michigan, and it sometimes occurs in American song-books. A burlesque version ("Get up and Shut the Door") may be found in Delehanty and Hengler's Song and Dance Book (copyright 1874), P. 169.
"Get up and Bar the Door." Collected by Mr. John Stone. Recited by Mr. Robert Fleming, of Norton, Va. Wise County. November 8, 1921.
1. Our guidman came hame at e'en,
And an angry man was he.
. . . .
. . . .
2. Up starts our guidman,
And give three skips on the floor,
"Will ye kiss my wife before my face,
And scuid me with puddin bra?" [1]
1. The Child line is, "And scad me wi pudding-bree." The Virginia line might mean either "scald me with pudding broth" or "scald me with fine pudding." The former is probably the meaning. Either Mr. Fleming's Scottish accent has suffered from his American residence, or Mr. Stone's Scottish recording is uncertain.