Ananias

DESCRIPTION: 'Ananias was a-laying in his bed (x3), When a knocking came at the door." Ananias asks who it is, "And he Lord he say, 'hit's me.'" The Lord asks the location of Ananias's religion, then tells Ananias to "lay down your rheumatism." He does
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1915 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: religious healing
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 520, "Ananias" (2 texts, perhaps of the same original)
NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, Dan Patterson, "A Sheaf of North Carolina Folksongs," Vol. IV, No. 1 (Jul 1956), p. 25, "Uncle Ananias' Funeral Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #11815
NOTES [120 words]: There are Biblical themes all over this piece, but as given it, it is not Biblical. There are two Ananiases (Hananiahs) in the New Testament: The husband of Sapphira, who dropped dead after cheating the Church (Acts 5:1-11) and the Damascene Christian who opened Paul's eyes (Acts 9:10-19). Neither of these is known to have been crippled.
(There is also a high priest Ananias in Acts 23:2, 24:1, but he's clearly not the one involved.)
There are, of course, Biblical accounts of cripples being made to walk (e.g. Mark 2:1-12); since they generally aren't named, it is possible that tradition assigned the name "Ananias" to one of them. But the details of this account don't match any Biblical healing I can recall. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.1
File: Br3520

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