Cricket and Crab-louse, The (Down Derry Down)

DESCRIPTION: A girl picks a flower containing a cricket and a crab-louse. Both transfer to her body; the crab-louse takes up residence in her vagina. The next day, he escapes and tells the cricket of the horrors he experienced while she had sex
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1976 (collected by Logsdon from Riley Neal)
KEYWORDS: bug sex bawdy humorous
FOUND IN: US(SW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Logsdon-WhorehouseBellsWereRinging 56, pp. 258-260, "Down, Derry Down" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4791
NOTES [122 words]: Logsdon-WhorehouseBellsWereRinging notes mentions of an item about a crab-louse and cricket in Legman's The Horn Book. Legman (pp. 153, 183) refers to a single item names "The Cricket and Crab-Louse," which appears on page 69 of an 1825 edition of The Merry Muses of Caledonia (a book which reportedly survive in only one copy). I have adopted Legman's title, since Logsdon's is so meaningless, but it should be noted that I have not seen the Merry Muses text; I am equating the two based solely on Legman's description. It is possible that the texts of the Merry Muses and Riley Neal are entirely different songs derived from a common folktale (which Legman also considers to underlie Tristram Shandy and Scientology). - RBW
File: Logs056

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