Old Pete Bateese

DESCRIPTION: French-Canadian dialect song. Pete Bateese is chased by wolves. He climbs a tree. The wolves fetch beavers to gnaw it down. Pete pours out some "hooch"; the beavers get drunk and chew up the wolves instead. Pete comes down and cries for the wasted hooch
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks)
LONG DESCRIPTION: French-Canadian dialect song. Pete Bateese is chased by wolves one night; he climbs a tree, so the wolves fetch beavers to gnaw it down. Pete pours out some "hooch"; the beavers get drunk and chew up the wolves instead. Pete comes down and "cry and cry to t'ink for where/His one-quart hooch she go."
KEYWORDS: humorous talltale drink animal
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks 75, "Old Pete Bateese" (1 text)
Beck-LoreOfTheLumberCamps 65, "Ole Pete Bateese" (1 text)
Roud #8851
NOTES [59 words]: I rather suspect this is one of William Henry Drummond's poems; Beck prints several of these ("The Wreck of the Julie Plante'," "'Poleon Doré," "De Camp on de 'Cheval Gris'") as traditional poems, and a Bateese is the main character of another Drummond poem, "How Bateese Came Home." But I don't find this in Drummond's well-known book The Habitant. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: Be075

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