She can thresh and she can fan. (v. 419 f.)
In euery hand a rod he gate
And layd vpon her a right good pace. (v. 955 f.)
Where art thou, wife? shall I haue any meate? (v. 839.)
(Compare Herd’s fragments with the last two, and with 903-10.)
278
THE FARMER’S CURST WIFE
A. ‘The Farmer’s Old Wife,’ Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 210, Percy Society, vol. xvii. The same in Bell, p. 204.
B. Macmath MS., p. 96.
The devil comes for a farmer’s wife and is made welcome to her by the husband. The woman proves to be no more controllable in hell than she had been at home; she kicks the imps about, and even brains a set of them with her pattens or a maul. For safety’s sake, the devil is constrained to take her back to her husband.