Courting Case, The

DESCRIPTION: Man comes courting a woman. She reminds him that she told him never to return. He offers her his "very fine house," his "very fine farm," his "very fine horse," etc.; (she rejects them all because he is a gambler/drunkard/whatever).
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1918 (Cecil Sharp collection)
KEYWORDS: gambling courting dialog money rejection
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE,So)
REFERENCES (15 citations):
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 104, "The Gambling Suitor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 361, "The Courting Cage" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 3, "The Courting Cage" (2 texts)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 3, "The Courting Cage" (2 tunes plus text excerpts)
Chappell-FolkSongsOfRoanokeAndTheAlbermarle 120, "The Drunkard's Courtship" (1 text)
Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 52, pp. 167-169, "O Madam, I Have a Fine Little Horse" (2 texts plus mention of 1 more)
Thomas/Leeder-SinginGatherin, pp. 4-5, "Bachelor's Song" (1 text, 1 tune, a rather different version that might be one of the other courting songs such as "The Keys of Canterbury")
Scarborough-ASongCatcherInSouthernMountains, pp. 304-307, "Kind Sir" (2 texts, one, "The Courting Cage," coming from Randolph; 2 tunes on pp.436-437)
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 177, "The Courting Case" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Burton/Manning-EastTennesseeStateCollectionVol1, pp. 98-99, "Courtin' Song" (1 text, 1 tune, with a peculiar final ending in which the two apparently grow old together despite rejecting each other; Roud files this with "Wheel of Fortune (Dublin City, Spanish Lady)," but the lyrics to me look more like this piece.)
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 173, "The Wooing" (2 texts, the "A" text being this and "B" being probably "Wheel of Fortune (Dublin City, Spanish Lady)")
Chase-AmericanFolkTalesAndSongs, pp. 146-147, "The Gambling Suitor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gilbert-LostChords, pp. 76-77, "The Girl Who Never Would Wed" (1 text, in which the girl never gives in, but the verses place it here)
Abrahams/Foss-AngloAmericanFolksongStyle, pp. 118-119, "The Drunkard's Courtship" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, COURTCAS COURTNG*
Roud #361
RECORDINGS:
Horton Barker, "The Drunkard's Courtship" (on Barker01)
Loman D. Cansler, "The Lovers' Quarrel" (on Cansler1)
Texas Gladden, "Kind Sir, I See You've Come Again (Courting Case)" (AFS 5233 A3; on USTGladden01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Keys of Canterbury" (theme)
cf. "Sweet Nelly My Heart's Delight" (plot)
cf. "Geordie's Courtship (I Wad Rather a Garret)" (plot)
cf. "Bachelor's Hall (III)" (theme)
NOTES [124 words]: In most versions of this song, the man says he has, or is, a "courting cage," which (presumably because it sounds so strange) is sometimes changed to a "courting case." But I wonder if, by any chance, the original was a "courting cake," which, according to Arnold Kellett, The Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition, and Folklore, revised edition, Smith Settle, 2002, p. 39, is a "kind of sandwich cake traditionally made by girls for their boyfriends." This might explain much about the strange first line of the song -- if only we could explain how a Yorkshire term came to be used in an American song (the song seems to be almost entirely American; there is at least one Canadian version, but I know of none from the British Isles). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: R361

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