Get Up and Bar the Door [Child 275]

DESCRIPTION: Old man and old wife must bar the door; neither wants to. They agree that whoever speaks first shall bar the door. Thieves enter the house, and play tricks on the couple. At last the old (man) cries out; the (wife) orders him orders him to bar the door
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1769 (Herd)
KEYWORDS: humorous robbery bargaining contest
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber)) US(Ap,MW,NE,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (32 citations):
Child 275, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (3 texts)
Bronson 275, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (20 versions)
Bronson-SingingTraditionOfChildsPopularBallads 275, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (2 versons: #1, #12)
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishSong, p. 92, "The Barring o' the Door" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan2 321, "The Barrin' o' the Door" (4 texts, 3 tunes) {A=Bronson's #16, B=#11, C=#12}
Barry/Eckstorm/Smyth-BritishBalladsFromMaine pp. 318-321, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (2 texts, 2 tunes) {Bronson's #17, #10}
Flanders-AncientBalladsTraditionallySungInNewEngland4, pp. 72-75, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ford-VagabondSongsAndBalladsOfScotland, pp. 148-150, "The Barrin' o' the Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 34, "Get Up and Shut the Door" (2 fragments, 1 tune) {Bronson's #20}
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 153, "Arise and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #5}
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore2 43, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (2 texts)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 43, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 excerpt, 1 tune)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #171, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #15}
Davis-TraditionalBalladsOfVirginia 44, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 fragment, possibly this song)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 51, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior-TraditionalSongsOfNovaScotia, pp. 92-93, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #4}
Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland 18, "Joan and John Blount" (1 text)
Peacock, pp. 239-240, "Bar the Door O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 657-658, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 172, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
Niles-BalladBookOfJohnJacobNiles 58, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
Combs/Wilgus-FolkSongsOfTheSouthernUnitedStates 38, pp. 128-129, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 185, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
Gainer-FolkSongsFromTheWestVirginiaHills, pp. 88-89, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
Boette-SingaHipsyDoodle, p. 8, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hodgart-FaberBookOfBallads, p. 77, "Get up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
Buchan-ABookOfScottishBallads 62, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
Whiting-TraditionalBritishBallads 40, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
HarvardClassics-EnglishPoetryChaucerToGray, pp. 87-88, "Get Up and Bar the Door" (1 text)
DT 275, BARDOOR* BARDOOR2 JHNBLNT BARDOOR4*
ADDITIONAL: James Kinsley, editor, Burns: Complete Poems and Songs (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #368, pp. 503-504, "Johnie Blunt" (1 text, 1 tune, from 1792)
ADDITIONAL: James Johnson, Editor, _The Scots Musical Museum_ [1853 edition], volume III, #300, p. 310, "Get up and bar the Door" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #1}
Roud #115
RECORDINGS:
Mrs Thomas Walters, "Bar the Door O" (on PeacockCDROM)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Old Man and the Door
Johnny Blunt
NOTES [65 words]: Louis Untermeyer, in The Golden Treasury of Poetry, calls this "an old joke with its origins in the Orient." I am guessing that this is a reference to what Child calls "The Arabian tale of Sulayman Bay and the Three STory-Tellers," which is not really Oriental as most of us would mean the term. In any case, there is much dispute over whether this is truly the original of this piece. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.3
File: C275

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