Found a red ear, red as blood is,
Mushka; cried they altogether,
Mushka; you shall have a sweetheart,
You shall have a handsome husband.”
John Barlow in his hasty pudding poem written in 1792 said:
“The laws of husking every wight can tell—
And sure no laws he ever keeps so well;
For each red ear a general kiss he gains,
With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains;
But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast,