US & Canadian Versions: 38. The Wee Wee Man
[I'm including the unexpurged text of The Johnstown Gals collected from R. J. Farmington of Arkansas in 1942 by Vance Randolph. H. M. Belden said that the song was "somehow suggestive of 'The Wee Wee Man'," and because of the salty language it could not be included in Randolph's four volume "Ozark Folk-Songs." The "f" word is almost passe in today's culture. Soon, someone will have to come up with new forbidden words!
The Johnstown Gals title may be a floater from the well-know fiddle and vocal song The Johnson Gals, which is an old tune and lyric from the 1800s. R. J. Farmington said the song was a longer one he heard in 1910 but he couldn't remember it all. The lyrics quote another well-known minstrel song, "Such A-Gittin' Upstairs."
R. Matteson 2012]
CONTENTS:
1) Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America
2) The Wee Wee Man- Saunders of Salem, Forsyth county NC; Brown Collection Collected by Mrs. Maude Sutton c. 1920 [see Legman-Randolph who reprinted the text.]
3) The Johnston Gals- R. J. Farmington; Arkansas, 1942. Collected by Vance Randolph
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Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America
by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section; A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
38. THE WEE, WEE MAN
Texts: Brown Coll.
Local Titles: None given.
Story Types: A: A man out walking encounters a little fairy, no bigger than his ear, but strong "as any buck". The man picks the elf up, and, after watching him throw a huge stone far away, goes along a lane with the little fellow until they come to a castle. Here a lovely lady comes out and wishes to "rassle". They go to bed, and after a night of sport the man awakes to find both his love and the elf-man gone.
Examples: Brown Coll.
Discussion: This version of Child 38 does not follow any of the texts given by Child in his collection, although its first five stanzas are generally the same as the corresponding parts of all seven British stories. North Carolina Stanzas 6, 7, 8, and 9 are, however, a vulgarization and rationalization of the fairy-lore found in the final lines of the Child texts. In fact. Stanza 6 was so crude that the informant refused to sing it to the collector. (A note on the manuscript reads, "One stanza Mr. S. censored here, a description of the girls physical qualities. He didn't know me well enough.") As will be noted with the publication of the F. C. Brown North Carolina Collection and the appearance of this text in print, there is a great deal of localization and modernization of the old lines in this unique American version.
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The Wee, Wee Man (Child 38)- Brown Collection
Child has seven versions of this ballad, all rather closely alike and all from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Since that time I find no trace of it until it appears in the present collection. That the North Carolina text is a version of Child 38 there can be no doubt, though it is modernized here and there in an interesting way, e.g., in stanzas 2 and 7.
No title. Sung by Saunders of Salem, Forsyth county. The manuscript bears no date.
1. Oh, I went walking one fine day
Upon the Gomont pier O.
I saw a little fairy man
No bigger than my ear O.
2 He wore a coat all gold and green,
No bigger than a thimble,
But he was strong as any buck
Like a gandy dancer[1] nimble.
3 I took him up and I set him down
And I put him on my knee.
And then he threw a mitched[2] stone
As far as I could see.
4 I told him he was a fine, brave man
And as strong as he could be.
And he said to me, 'My bucko lad,
Come you along with me.'
5 So I went his way along the lane;
And soon we found a castle,
And a fine naked ladd[3] came out
To see if I would rassle.
("One stanza Mr. S. censored here, a description of the girl's physical qualities. He didn't know me well enough." Note on the manuscript.)
7 She was the gayest wench for bed
I ever saw in all my life;
If Elder Thomson[4] had been there
She could have been his wife.
8 We lay in a bed all covered with pearl,
And I did often kiss her.
And now at night alone in my bunk
I surely do miss her.
9 When I woke up and found her gone
I knew I could not stay.
So I spied around for my little man;
But he had gone away.
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Footnotes:
1. A gandy dancer, according to Weseen's Dictionary of American Slang and Berrey and Van den Bark's American Thesaurus of Slang, is a railroad section hand. The phrase is not entered in NED or DAE.
2. Miswritten or misheard, presumably, for "mickle. '
3. What follows indicates that "ladd" is miswritten for "lady."
4. In this line Child's versions A-K have "the king of Scotland." Elder Thomson seems to be an American figure.
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The Johnstown Gals- R. J Farmington; Arkansas in 1942. Collected Vance Randolph.
[ first part forgotten]
We rode and we rode all down the lane,
And such a sight it never was seen.
But four and twenty Johnstown girls,
A-dancing naked on the green.
Such a-gettin' upstairs I never did see
Such a-gettin' upstairs it don't suit me.
[text upcoming]