Today’s poem is inspired by an Appalachian mountain story collected by Richard Chase, and included in his book of folktales, titled The Grandfather Tales. Before the advent of the television and the internet, story telling was both an art and the preferred entertainment when sitting with family or neighbors after dinner or around the fireplace in the evening. This poem is a re-telling of one of Chase’s Grandfather Tale titled, “Skookin’ Huntin.” One genre of tall tales, are hunting story which are not unlike a fishing story about the “one that got away” The key to this story is that it’s nonsense. Everything is backwards or upside down. So as we start October, let’s begin with a little sillinessss.
I’ve travelled this world all over:
House to barn, down to the gate,
Upstairs, downstairs like a rover
’til true love changed my fate.
One day I fixed to go huntin;’
Had to unfinish my chores,
Pick the ripe pigs, slop the pun’kins,
Unlocked th’ house, opened doors.
I galloped the path to the barn
Clumb up the horse, sat with a shout
Rode the ol’ stump right off the farm.
’n just like that, I was out.
Rode my mare to a valley town
That set way up on a hill
Where little roast pigs ran around
Squealing, “Who’ll eat me? Who will?”
Come to a house made of cornbread—
Its sides, shingled with flapjacks,
Knocked on the woman with my head
When door swung and knocked me back.
That kind ol’ woman offered me
A glass of bread and a penny.
“No thank you Ma’am, if you please”
Told her, “I just had any!”
Went and looked for my brother’s place;
A house that’s easy to find,
Sits alone in an empty space
With fifty like it beside.
A house high up, there down below,
A log cabin made o’ brick,
Where in a field he’d scratch and hoe
The corn he’d fished from the crick.
That’s when I saw Jenny, my love,
I knew she must of missed me.
Nailed the door down and winders up;
So I strowed in through the chimney.
Directly, I throw’d my hat on the fire,
Thoughtfully stirred up the bed,
I sat right close, her eyes admire
s’far from her as I could get.
We played cards (some say it’s a sin).
She drawed hearts, me diamond’s love
‘Bout that time her old man come in,
And he drawed himself a club.
So I runn’d home, runn’d out a there,
Said, “I won’t see you never;
The old grey mare that’s mine, is yours;
I’ll be back for it forever.”
That very day life changed for me
The girl I’d chased ‘round the bend?
One I thought I was chasing? She?
Finally, caught me in the end.
Alt. Randall Edwards 2021
after “Skookin’ Huntin’,” Richard Chase, Grandfather Tales: American-English Folk Tales (1948) (Richard Chase, February 15, 1904 – February 1988).
Music: “Cabin of Love” by THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY TRIO; Burch Columbia (20794). Publication date 1950-08
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