Woodpecker's Hole, The

DESCRIPTION: The narrator sticks his finger in the woodpecker's hole in this quatrain ballad that hints of a story otherwise left untold. In other versions, it may be a skunk's or other animal's hole
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1919
KEYWORDS: bawdy scatological bird humorous animal campsong
FOUND IN: Australia Britain(England) US(MW,NE,So,SW)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Cray-EroticMuse, pp. 226-228, "The Woodpecker's Hole" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 61, "Take It Out, Take It Out, Remove It" (1 text, tune referenced)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 66, 67, "(The skunk's hole)" (1 text, from user descartes2, posted August 31, 2021, plus a mention by John5918 of a "Woodpecker's Hole" version)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 233, 489, 491, "Little Skunk's Hole" (notes only)
MidwestFolklore, W. L. McAtee, "Some Folklore of Grant County, Indiana, in the Nineties," Volume 1, Number 4 (WInter 1951), p. 258, "(Stuck my head in a woodpecker hole)" (1 text, too short to be really certain that it's this)
ST EM226 (Full)
Roud #10134
RECORDINGS:
Judy Cook, "The Little Skunk's Hole" (Piotr-Archive #397, recorded 12/21/2022)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Dixie" (tune) and references there
cf. "Little Brown Jug" (tune)
NOTES [40 words]: Averill says some camps sang this to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw," but this seems to be a minority opinion. I've heard it sung to "Dixie"; this is the tune used by Judy Cook, e.g. (although her version has a tag to a different tune). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: EM226

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