Get Up and Bar the Door- Whitley (NC) 1952 Brown A
[No date or place given- published in 1952- could be considerably older. Whitley made several contributions to the Brown Collection- none I've seen have date or place; they were sent in by mail. Neither of the two Brown versions have been proven to be authetically traditional versions from North Carolina.]
Brown Collection of NC Folklore: 43. Get up and Bar the Door (Child 275)
For analogies in other tongues to this little domestic comedy, see Child's headnote. It has been found occasionally in later tradition: in Scotland (LL 216-18), Newfoundland (BSSN 41-2), New Brunswick (BBM 318-19), Maine (BBM 320-1), Virginia (TBV 495-6, a fragment only). West Virginia (FSMEU 147-8), Florida (FSF 320-1), Missouri (OFS i 186), and Michigan (BSSM 371-2).
A. 'Get Up and Bar the Door.' Obtained from Edna Whitley, date and place not noted. It is very close to Child's A version, suggesting the possibility that it is merely one of the sheets that Dr. Brown sometimes distributed as a means of finding ballads in the memories of school children and others. But even if so, its presence in the Collection means that Edna Whitley recognized it as a ballad she knew.
1 It was about the month of May,
A good time they had then,
That our gude wife had pudding to make
And she boiled them in the pan.
2 The wind blew from the east and north
And blew into the floor.
Quoth our gudeman to our gudewife,
'Get up and bar the door.'
3 'My hand is in my pudding,
Gudeman, as you may see;
And it shouldn't be barred this hunder year
It's never be barred by me.'
4 They made a paction 'tween them two.
They made it firm and strong,
That the first word whatever spoke
Should rise and bar the door.
5 Then by there came two gentlemen
At twelve o'clock at night,
When they can see na either house;
And at the door they light.
6 'Now whether is this a rich man's house.
Or whether it's a poor?'
But never a word wad one o them speak,
For barring of the door.
7 And first they ate the white puddings,
And soon they ate the black.
Much thought the good wife to herself
Yet never a word did she speak.
8 The one unto the other said,
'Here, man, take you my knife;
Do ye take off the old man's beard,
And I'll kiss the good wife.'
9 'But there's no water in the house;
And what will we do then?'
'What ails ye at the pudding brae
That boils within the pan?'
10 Oup then started our goodman.
An angry man was he:
'Will ye kiss my wife before my een
And scauld me with pudding bree?'
11 Oup then started our gude wife,
Gied three skimps on the floor:
'Gudeman, ye've spoke the first word.
Get up and bar the door.'