Wild Boar- Muir (VA-KY) Roberts 1930
[My title, taken from the historical novel The Great Meadow by Elizabeth Madox Roberts (1886-1941). Clearly this based on a traditional version but the source is unknown.
The Great Meadow (1930) is a historical novel by the Kentucky-born writer Elizabeth Madox Roberts (1881–1941). Set in the years between 1774 and 1781, it tells the story of Diony Hall, who migrates from Virginia to Kentucky, which was known as the "great meadow." (Kentucky Encyclopedia)
The basic plot: Diony Hall of Five Oaks in Virginia marries Berk Jarvis and travels with him into the Kentucky wilderness, only to lose him when he goes after the murderers of his mother. After three years missing, Berk is presumed dead by Diony and replaced with a new husband: Evan Muir. In the following excerpt, Muir is singing "Wild Boar":
R. Matteson 2014]
"Sing it again. He cut 'im down. Sing Bangum went into the Boar's den." They were shouting and then Muir was singing:
There is a wild boar in these woods,
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
He grinds our bones and drinks our blood,
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
How shall I that wild boar see?
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
Just blow your horn and he'll come to thee,
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
Bangum blew his horn a blast,
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
And the boar came splitten oak and ash,
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
Bangum drew his trusty knife.
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
And he stabbed that wild boar outen his life,
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
Bangum went into the wild boar's den,
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.
And he saw the bones of a thousand men
Cut 'im down, out 'im down.