Husbandman and the Servingman, The

DESCRIPTION: A husbandman and a servingman meet and discuss their occupations. The servant describes all the rich people he associates with; the husbandman details the pleasure of a good season in the fields. The servingman wishes he had chosen the other occupation
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1846 (Dixon-AncientPoemsBalladsSongsOfThePeasantryOfEngland); 17C (Halliwell)
KEYWORDS: work dialog farming servant
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Broadwood/Maitland-EnglishCountySongs, pp. 144-145, "The Servingman and the Husbandman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-FolkSongsOfTheUpperThames, pp. 112-115, "The Husbandman and the Servingman" (1 text) (also Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 512)
Dixon-AncientPoemsBalladsSongsOfThePeasantryOfEngland, Poem #10, pp. 42-46,241, "A Dialogue between the Husband-man and the Serving-man" (1 text)
Bell-Combined-EarlyBallads-CustomsBalladsSongsPeasantryEngland, pp. 264-269, "God SPeed the Plow, and Bless the Corn-Mow," ""A Dialogue Between the Husbandman and the Servingman" (2 texts)
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 226, "The Husband-man and the Servant-man" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gundry-CanowKernow-SongsDancesFromCornwall, pp. 8-9, "The Husbandman and the Serving Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
cf. Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime, pp. 117-120, "I Am the Duke of Norfolk, or Paul's Steeple" (1 text plus various excerpts, 1 tune, said by Kennedy to be this piece -- a statement going back at least to Bell)
cf. Chappell/Wooldridge-OldEnglishPopularMusic I, pp. 282-283, "Paul's Steeple, or I Am the Duke of Norfolk" (1 tune, partial text, said by Kennedy to be this piece -- a statement going back at least to Bell)
DT, HUSBSERV
ADDITIONAL: J.O. Halliwell, The Loyal Garland (London, 1850 ("Digitized by Google")), Song #78 pp. 66-69, "The Husband-man and Serving-man"
cf. Enid Porter, _The Folklore of East Anglia_, Batsford, 1974, p. 68, "(I am the Duke of Norfolk)" (1 text)
Roud #873
RECORDINGS:
Mummers from Symondsbury, "The Symondsbury & Eype Mummer's Play & The Singing of the Travels" (on Lomax41, LomaxCD1741, FSB9)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Soldier Boy for Me (A Railroader for Me)" (theme: professional comparison) and references there
cf. "Buttercup Joe" (subject, a few phrases)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Singing of the Travels
NOTES [145 words]: Broadwood/Maitland-EnglishCountySongs, discussing the Halliwell text as "the oldest printed version of this dialog", comparing it to Broadwood/Maitland-EnglishCountySongs's own text which comes from Davies Gilbert's Ancient English Carols: "the words are only slightly different from those given above, except that in the last verse, the second line runs, "Pray for the peace of old England," in allusion to the Civil Wars, from which the collection dates." - BS
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland claims that Chappell's piece "I Am the Duke of Norfolk" is this tune. This overstates the case -- Chappell's tune is similar but not identical in the tenor line. And neither tune is the one I know. "I Am the Duke of Norfolk" is, however, a popular tune; it is cited many times in the Broadside Ballad Index (ZN338, ZN1208, ZN1839, ZN2168, ZN2570, ZN2671, ZN2955). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: K226

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