Brannigan's Pup

DESCRIPTION: Brannigan's pup fought "seventeen hours of battle." The dog was ugly to begin with, and scarred, but it would attack anything -- clothes, other dogs, a young girl's leg -- until at last it attacked an organ grinder's monkey and choked on the tail
AUTHOR: Gus Phillips ? (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1879 (Cazden/Haufrecht/Studer-FolkSongsOfTheCatskills)
KEYWORDS: animal talltale dog
FOUND IN: US(MA) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Cazden/Haufrecht/Studer-FolkSongsOfTheCatskills 122, "Ol' Mickey Brannigan's Pup" (1 text, 1 tune)
Bethke-AdirondackVoices,pp. 107-108, "Mickey Brannigan's Pup" (1 text, 1 tune)
Guigné-ForgottenSongsOfTheNewfoundlandOutports, pp. 260-262, "Mickey Mulligan's Pup (Brannigan's Pup)" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, MICKPUP*
ADDITIONAL: Lockwood Honore, Popular College Songs (Cincinnati: John Church Company, 1891 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 84-85, "Brannigan's Pup" ("Ould Mickey Brannigan had a Bull pup") (1 text, 1 tune)
Johnny Burke (John White, Editor), _Burke's Ballads_, no printer listed, n.d. (PDF available on Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 55, "Brannigan's Pup" (1 text)
Johnny Burke (William J. Kirwin, editor), _John White's Collection of Johnny Burke Songs_, Harry Cuff Publications, St. John's, 1981, #79, p. 120, "Brannigan's Pup" (1 text)
Roud #2971
NOTES [81 words]: The attribution of this song to Gus Phillips (made by Cazden/Haufrecht/Studer-FolkSongsOfTheCatskills) seems fairly strong, which makes it interesting that it was included among the works of Johnny Burke. But it occurs late in the White/Kirwin collection of Burke's ballads, among the pieces added to the Burke canon long after Burke was dead. Burke, who was born in 1851, could have written the song and Phillips could have stolen it, but the weight of evidence is the other way. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.1
File: FSC122

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