Wife, Dearest Wife- Raymond (VT) pre1965 Flanders D
[No date given- the date should be circa 1940 when other ballads were collected from him. My title- replacing the generic one with the first line-- another similar title is "Kind Wife" in the Brown Collection. From: Flanders' Ancient Ballads IV, 1965. Her notes follow.
R. Matteson 2013]
Our Goodman (Child 274)
Mrs. Sullivan's statement that "Our Goodman" is a drinking song" into which is "put anything they like" is an accurate description of this usuatty bawdy piece. It has been known in Britain at least since the end of the eighteenth century and a German translation of an English broadside started its spread across Europe during the early nineteenth century. Generally, the American texts are Scottish in form, like Child A, but as a rule they attempt to soften the cuckolding of the husband by making him a drunkard. Note, however, Flanders G.
See Coffin, 144-b (American); Dean-Smith, 70 (English); and Greig and Keith, 214-6 (Scottish) for a start on a bibliography. Child, V, 88 f., discusses the use of the motif in literary and folk tales.
Many informants refuse to sing this ballad on moral grounds, though the lines that have caused them to feel this may are not to be found in print.
D. 'Wife, Dearest Wife' (Our Good Man)- D. H. Raymond of Springfield, Vermont, sang this song as learned from his father Alexander Raymond (deceased). H. H. F., Collector
"Wife, dearest wife, come quick and tell to me
Whose coat this is, in the place my own coat ought to be?"
"You darn fool, you crazy fool, you're blind and cannot see.
Isn't that the petticoat my granny sent to me?"
"I've travelled this world over; I've travelled miles and miles
But buttons on a petticoat I never saw before.
"Wife, dearest wife, come quick and tell to me
Whose head this is in the place where my own head ought to be."
"You darn fool, you crazy fool, you're drunk and cannot see.
Isn't that the cabbage head my mother sent to me?"
"I've travelled this world over; I've travelled door to door,
But hair upon a cabbage head I never saw before."