Our Goodman

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"Our Goodman" is Child ballad 274.[1]

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

A man returns home to find evidence that his wife has a lover there: a horse, a sword, a wig, etc, up to finding the lover. His wife makes absurd claims: the horse is a sow, the sword is a porridge-spurtle, the wig is a clocken-hen, the lover is a milk-maid. Her husband says that he never saw a sow with a saddle, a porridge-spurtle with silver handles, a clocken-hen with powder, or a milk-maid with a beard.

[edit] Variants

This song has been retold as "Seven Drunken Nights" and under many other titles, including:

  • "They Came Home Late" - Spicer, George/The Voice of the People 13: They Ordered Their Pints of Beer and Bottles of Sherry
  • "The Cuckold's Song" - Harry Cox, Mary O'Connors & Colm Keane/Classic Ballads of Britain & Ireland Vol 2
  • "Drunkard's Special" - Coley Jones/Anthology of Am Folk Vol 1-disc 1
  • "Five Nights Drunk" - Hattie Presnell/Folk-Legacy CD-22, Max Hunter on Folk-Legacy The Continuing Tradition 1981
  • "Four Nights Drunk" - Ed McCurdy/Blood, Booze ‘n’ Bones
  • "Old Drunken Man" - Alice Francombe/The Bird Upon the Tree
  • "Shickered as He Could Be" - A.L. Lloyd/First Person (Some of His Favourite Folk Songs)
  • "Three Nights Drunk" - Kristin Hersh/Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight
  • "Three Nights Experience" - Dickel Brothers/Dickel Brothers Volume One

[edit] Critical notes

In British Popular Ballads John E. Housman observes that "There is much of Chaucer's indomitable gaiety in this ballad. The questions of the jealous husband and the evasions of his wife are treated here in a humorous vein, and there are French ballads of a similar type."

[edit] References

  1. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "Our Goodman"

[edit] External links

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