The Deaf Woman's Courtship: A Song History
"The Deaf Woman's Courtship" is a comic courting song of unknown authorship in which an old man puts a string of ordinary requests to an old woman, who cannot seem to hear any of them until he asks her to marry him.[1] The Traditional Ballad Index dates it to 1776, from the Herd manuscript, and records it from England, Scotland, Maritime Canada and several regions of the United States.[1] Collectors in Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee and Nova Scotia printed it under names such as "Old Woman, Old Woman" and "Hard of Hearing," Cecil Sharp included it in English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, and Iona and Peter Opie entered a version in their Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.[1] It turned up in camp and Girl Scout songbooks as well.[1]
French, A Lady with Three Suitors, pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, c. 1500. A lady with three suitors, shown for the song's theme of courtship; the drawing has no connection to the song.
In August 1941, at Galax, Virginia, Library of Congress recordists including Alan Lomax recorded the fiddler Emmett Lundy reciting "Deaf Woman's Courtship."[2][3] That brief performance, well under a minute long, was issued in 1977 on the Topic/String Records LP Fiddle Tunes From Grayson County, Virginia.[3]
Phyllis Gaskins lists it among the G tunes in Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer), her illustrated Fingers Of Steel book on the Galax dulcimer, which also takes up the instrument's history and construction.[4]
Sources
- The Traditional Ballad Index: "Deaf Woman's Courtship, The".
- Library of Congress: "Deaf woman's courtship" (AFS 04939 A01).
- Mainly Norfolk: "Emmett W. Lundy: Fiddle Tunes From Grayson County, Virginia".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Phyllis Gaskins, Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer)".
- Image: French, A Lady with Three Suitors, pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, c. 1500. The Cleveland Museum of Art.