The Old Gray Mare

As noted in Muse II, p. 198, the melody for "The Old Gray Mare" carries other bawdy songs.  One of rural origins, which seems to have lost its currency in urban America, is "She Shit on the Whiffletree."  Only because of its scarcity do we include this from the Canfield Collection of 1926:

The old gray mare she whooped on the whiffle-tree,
Whooped on the whiffle-tree, whooped on the whiffle-tree.
The old gray mare she whooped on the whiffle-tree,
Down in Alabam'.

Chorus:
Down in Alabam', down in Alabam',
The old gray mare she whooped on the whiffle-tree,
Down in Alabam'.

	Randolph-Legman has the only other reported version of this in Vol. I, p. 154.  Webster's defines "whiffletree" as the pivoted, swinging bar to which a team's harnesses are attached and by which a wagon or carriage is drawn.