Rabbit Hash

DESCRIPTION: Patting Chant: "Oh rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, Rabbit a-hash An' polecat smash; Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit a-hash. Rabbit skip an'-a rabbit hop, An' a-rabbit eat my turnip top. Oh, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit a-hash! Oh, rabbit a-hash."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: animal food nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 238-239, "Rabbit Hash" (1 text, 1 tune, though the tune is really just a single note fitted to the music)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 168, "The Rabbit Skipped, The Rabbit Hopped" (1 short text)
Roud #10058
NOTES [110 words]: This is a sort of a dubious lumping of Lomax's and Brown's versions; Brown's text consists simply of the lines "The rabbit skipped, the rabbit hopped, the rabbit bit off the turnip top," and Brown did not note it as a patting chant. But it's easy to see how it could have shifted from one form to the other.
Roud links together several rabbit songs under one number: "Mister Rabbit," "Ole Mister Rabbit (I'll Get You Rabbit)," even "Rabbit Hash." All are about rabbits raiding gardens (something they certainly do) and the attempts to punish them for it (rarely successful, even with modern technology). But the forms are quite distinct, so I split them. - RBW
File: LxA238

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