THERE WERE THREE chaps in a public house, and when it came to closing time they went outside and one of them said, “I’ve gitten an idea, chaps. Which yan o’ us doesn’t do as t’wife tells us ta-neet when we ga yam es ta pay for drinks round ta-morn t’neet.”
They all agreed to it, and they all met as usual t’next neet, and t’first chap started off and he said, “I gat yam an’ she started playing pop weasel. So I thowt, if she could mek such a row I could ’elp it on, so I started. An’ then she said, ‘Aye, that’s it. Ga an’ wakken aw t’street up.’ So I did dew. So I’s clear. I’ll ev a smook and hear you other chaps now.”
T’second fellow said, “I think I’ll clear mesel’. I gat into t’house; I allus hev a drink o’ milk afoor I ga to bed, an’ as I was fillin’ mi pot a lile drop spilt o’ t’flooer. An’ she said, ‘Aye, throw it all ower t’flooer.’ So up wi’ t’jug an’ I did dew. So I’s clear aw reet.”
T’third fella, scrattin’ his head, said, “I was sure it wad be me. I gat into t’house and she met me at t’dooer wi’ t’poker. And just as I gat sat down she let go wi’ it, an’ just grazed me heead. And t’usual thing, she started playing shell; shoutin’ she did was turble. An’ I was as bad. An’ then she said, ‘Oh! ga an’ drown yersel.’” And he said, “Eh! I hadn’t the heart to dew it.”
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The Lazy Wife
Recorded from Frank Rose, Swinbrook, Oxfordshire, on August 12, 1963.
Motif W111.3 is “The Lazy Wife.” A variant of the present jest, collected from a Cornishman in Michigan, is in R. M. Dorson, “Dialect Stories of the Upper Peninsula,” Journal of American Folklore, LXI (1948), 137, No. 37, “Fire! Fire!” The responsibility of the country wife for seeing that the fire stayed lit all night and was revived in the morning is discussed by E. Estyn Evans in Irish Folk-Ways (London, 1957), p. 71.
THERE WERE A farmer ’as had a very lazy wife. Long ago when they used to keep ’orses on the farm and they ’ad the old carters, they used to go out early to feed the ’orses and come back to breakfast. So when they got back the wife was still in bed. So ’e went to the foot of the stair and he shouted, “Fire! Fire! FIRE!”
Then she come rushing down in ’er nightdress, and say, “Where ’er?”
“Everybody’s ’ouse but ours,” ’e says.
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The Lad Who Was Never Hungry
Printed by Edward M. Wilson, “Some Humorous English Folk Tales, Part I,” Folk-Lore, XLIX (1938), 185–86, No. 4, as told in September, 1937, by Mrs. Emily Harrison, a native of Askam-in-Furness, who since her marriage has lived in Crosthwaite. She heard the tale when she was hired at Ulverston Fair from an old farmer who came from Preston. The tradition then belongs to Lancashire. The farmer tells it on himself.
Type 1561, The Lazy Boy Eats Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper One after the Other is scattered throughout Europe. Baughman lists variants from Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Indiana. The latter text, from the Bloomington area (The Federal Writers’ Project in Indiana, Hoosier Tall Stories, 1937, p. 13, “Mighty Good Policy”) is closest to the present form. A Mexican-American text from New Mexico is reprinted in R. M. Dorson, Buying the Wind, pp. 447–48.
THE FARMER was talking to the lad at the hiring fair.
T’ farmer asked him if he was a good getter up.
“Oh, aye,” he said, he was a good getter up, he says, “ye kna ah’s nivver tired, ah’s nivver hungry, an’ ah’s nivver dry.”
“Oh!” he says, “Tha’s just t’reet fella for me.”
So when he lands up to t’place, whatever’s set before him he eats it, whatever he has to drink he drinks it all, and whenever he went to bed he always went in good time—nine o’clock prompt. So it went on for a few days, so t’boss said to him, “I thowt thou was nivver hungry, nivver dry, an’ nivver tired.”
“Nay,” he said “it’s o’ this way. I it afoor I’s hungry, I sup before I’s dry, and ah ga to bed afoor I’s tired.”
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Take a Pinch of Salt With It
Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 28, 1963, who heard the incident at Langport Women’s Institute in 1960. Langport is above the flat moorland of Sedgemoor, in Somerset.
An Aberdeen version is told as a campfire yarn by Helen Duff, Black Islands.
THERE WERE A varm lad, and ’e went out on a job, and someone met ’e down to Langport town, and said to ’im, “Tom, what be doing ’ere? I thought ’ee ’ad a job down over.”
“Ah,” ’e said, “I did, but first one o’ they sheep died, and us put un down to zalt, and us lived on that; then old cow died, and us put un down to zalt, and us lived on that. And last week, the Missus died, so I comed on ’ome.”
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Old Charley Creed
Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 28, 1963, who heard the story from Mrs. H. . . . in Crowcombe Women’s Institute, in Somerset.
Cf. the variant of Type 1738, The Dream: All Parsons in Hell, printed as No. 59 in this book, “The Parsons’ Meeting.” Two texts similar to the present one about dreams of favored persons in Hell, from Maine and Massachusetts, are summarized from printed sources in R. M. Dorson, Jonathan Draws the Long Bow (Cambridge, Mass., 1946), pp. 56–57. See Baughman, MotifsX459(e) andX688*(a).
YOU REMEMBER OLD Charley Creed, lived down to Lawford? Well, he were a bit short tempered, and him and his man soon fell out and he told him to take himself off.
“Where tew?” says Sam.
“Oh, go to Hell,” shouts old Charley.
So Sam went off, and when next day came he never turned up to work.
The next day he came back, and old Charley says, “And where’ve you been?”
“Oh,” says Sam, “I went there where you telled me.”
“Oh ah,” says old Charley, “and where be that then?”
“To Hell,” says Sam, helping him along nicely. “’Twasn’t at all a bad place, and there were a lovely great fire, and a row of chairs, so I went and I sat down. Then in comes the Devil, with his horns and pitchfork, and says, ‘Here you, out of that, quick. We’re keeping that armchair for old Charley Creed.’”
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