King John and the Bishop- Vaughan (MI) 1937
[Fragment from: Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan by Emelyn- Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering; Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press: 1939. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
155. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
(Child, No. 45)
Save for a difference in refrains the Michigan fragment is identical with Child B. Child B was taken from a broadside printed for P. Brooksby, who published from 1672 to 1695, and was "allowed" by Roger l'Estrange, who was licenser from 1663 to 1685 This ballad is one of the riddle! stories in which a forfeit is to be paid by the vanquished party (cf. Child, Nos 1 and 2,1, 1-20). The fragment given here was sung in 1937 by Mr. Henry R. Vaughan, Detroit, who remembered the story of die song as sung by his mother in Vermont, but could recall only a few lines.
I'll tell you a story, a story anon,
Of a noble prince, and his name was King John;
For he was a prince and a prince of great might,
He held up great wrongs, and he put down great right,
To me down, down, diddy-i-down.