I Saw Esau

DESCRIPTION: "'Twas just about a year ago... I found a lass, but now, alas! I find that I have lost her." The singer repeatedly encounters her with her country cousin Esau. Chorus: "I saw Esau, he saw me, And she saw I saw Esau."
AUTHOR: Words: Harry Hunter / Music: Vincent Davies (source: FolkSongAndMusicHall), but see notes
EARLIEST DATE: 1870 (The New Comic Songster; Dime-Song-Book #26)
KEYWORDS: courting rejection humorous wordplay
FOUND IN: US(MW) Ireland
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Stout-FolkloreFromIowa 65, pp. 88-90, "I Saw Esau" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spaeth-WeepSomeMoreMyLady, pp. 201-202, "I Saw Esau" (1 text, 1 tune)
New-Comic-Songster, p. 61, "The Country Cousin, or, I saw Esau Kissing Kate" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dime-Song-Book #26, pp. 16-17, "I Saw Esau Kissing Kate" (1 text)
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #255, "I saw Esau sawing wood" (1 text)
Brady-AllInAllIn, p. 76, "I saw Esau" (1 short text, probably this)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "I saw Esau Kissing Kate"
ADDITIONAL: Peter and Iona Opie, _I Saw Esau: Traditional Rhymes of Youth_, #2, "(I Saw Esau)" (1 fragment)
Roud #4864
NOTES [110 words]: To this compare Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 202, "I Saw Esau." It's not the same song, but it's the same gimmick.
FolkSongAndMusicHall is the source for the attribution to Hunter and Davies; Davies is also credited with the music in New-Comic-Songster. I don't doubt that they were responsible for the minstrel version, but I can't help but suspect that there was an "I Saw Esau" rhyme in existence before their time which they took and elaborated.
Roud seems to indicate that Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #6, "All in, a bottle of gin! All out, a bottle of stout" belongs here. But it's such a small fragment that I really can't tell. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: Stou088

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