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Brewster: Ballads and Songs of Indiana 319
75 THE DERBY RAM
For other American texts and references, see Campbell and Sharp, II, 184; Colcord, p. 68; Flanders and Brown, p. 100; Hudson, Folksongs, p. 273; Journal, XVIII, 51; XXXVI, 377; XXXIX, 173; XLV, 44; Shoemaker, p. 266; Gordon, Folk-Songs of America, p. 74; Henry, Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands, p. 175.
British: Kinlock, The Ballad Book (1827), p. 80; Chappell, Old English Popular Music, p. 140 ("Martin Said to His Man"); Broadwood and Mait-land, English County Songs, pp. 44-47.
Analogues of this "lying song" are numerous. See, for example, Journal, XXIV, 300; Roxburghe Ballads, Nos. 34-35, p. 425 ("Tom Tell-Truth"); Bartok, Hungarian Folk Music, p. 183—
"I caught a gnat, it was bigger than a horse.
I melted its fat, there was over a hogshead of it. |:Who believes this, is a donkey—worse than a horse." :|
and Grundtvig, Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, No. 31—
"And I have yet a Danish horse Was born in Saebylund; And ev'ry time he goes to mill Bears fifteen hundred pounds."
A
"The Mighty Sheep." Contributed by Miss Edith Del Hopkins, of Boonville, Indiana. Warrick County. Learned from the singing of her mother, Mrs. A. J. Hopkins. June 4, 1935. With music.
1. There was a mighty sheep, sir;
He was a Ram-o-ree; He was the biggest sheep, sir, That ever I did see.
Sing fractoroll, de, ding, ding,
Sing fractoroll, de, day;
Sing fractoroll, de, ding, ding,
Sing fractoroll, de, day.
2. The sheep he had four feet, sir,
And on them he did stand, And every time he set one down It covered an acre of land. |
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