Creeping and Crawling This British ballad apparently made its way to the United States after the Great War in abbreviated, and broadly humorous form. It was sent to Hubert Canfield in the early months of 1926 by an unidentified informant under the title "One Night Late in August." Judging from the emphasis on the regimental number, this seemingly stems from British Army currency. Lacking long and celebrated regimental histories -- a half dozen cavalry units seem the great exception -- American soldiers tended to identify themselves by the larger division. [ A ] One night late in August Mary lay a-sleeping. One night late in August Mary lay a-sleeping. When along came a corp'ral on his hands and knees a-creeping. With his long funny-doodle dangling way down to his knees. When three months were over, Mary fell a-weeping. When three months were over, Mary fell a-weeping. She wept for the corp'ral on his hands and knees a-creeping. With his long funny-doodle, etc. When six months were over, Mary grew fatter, When six months were over, Mary grew fatter, And everyone wondered who the hell had been at her. With his long funny-doodle, etc. When nine months were over, Mary burst asunder, When nine months were over, Mary burst asunder, And out jumped a kid with a remimental number, And his long funny-doodle, etc. Hubert Canfield had a second, and similar, version in which "Nellie" is the heroine. Joseph Fineman points out that the song is recorded by Oscar Brand on his Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads (AFLP 1906) and is included in his book of the same name, p. 44. Brand adds a last stanza: Young ladies, take warning: Be sure to keep from under The spell of the sergeant. Your virtue he will plunder. A virtually identical text and tune are in Tony McCarthy, Bawdy British Folk Songs (London: Wolfe Publishing Limited, 1972), pp. 101-102. [ B ] As Mary, dear Mary, one day was a-lying, As Mary, sweet Mary, one day was a-lying, She spotted her John, at the door he was spying, With his tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lo de rol lay. With his tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lo de rol lay. Oh Johnny, dear Johnny, oh do not come to me, Oh Johnny, pray Johnny, oh do not come to me, Or else I'm quite certain that you will undo me, With your tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lol de rol lay. With your tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lo de rol lay. But Johnny, dear Johnny, not liking to look shady, But Johnny, sweet Johnny, not liking to see shady, Why he downed with his breeches and treat his lady With his tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lol de rol lay. With his tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lo de rol lay. Oh Johnny, dear Johnny, you'll make me cry murder, Oh Johnny, pray cease this, you'll make me scream murder. But she soon changed her note, and she murmured, "In further. With your tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lol de rol lay." With your tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lo de rol lay. Now Mary, dear Mary, grew fatter and fatter, Now Mary's, sweet Mary's plump belly grew fatter, Which plainly did prove that her John had been at her, With his tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lo de rol lay. With his tol de riddle, tol de riddle, lo de rol lay. This version, which Legman states is a literary rewrite of the folk song, is printed in Randiana, or Excitable Tales, a once scarce bit of 19th Century erotica. The pseudonymous Pisanus Fraxi, that is, Henry Spencer Ashbee, fixes the publication of the book to New York in 1884. See his Catena Librorum Tacendorum (London, 1885), p. 485. [ C ] On a tape recording made by San Diego bookseller and concert organizer Lou Curtiss in his home, onetime Kentucky union organizer Jim Garland sang this variant under the title "Crawling and Creeping." Early one morning came crawling and creeping. Early one morning came crawling and creeping. Early one morning came crawling and creeping. I spied a fair maid while snoring and sleeping. Lay over, lay over, lay your left leg over mine. Similarly: I said, "Fair maid, may I come to bed to you?" She snored and replied, "I'm afraid you'll undo me." I said, "No, fair maid, I won't undo you." She snored and replied, "Then come to bed to me." "You got on drawers and I can't under them." She snored and replied, "Then just take a knife to them." "I ain't got a knife since I can remember." She snored and replied, "There's one on the window." In about nine months and wasn't that a wonder, That it hadn't got killed in the lightning and thunder." In posting the text to the newsgroup ballad-l by e-mail on January 25, 1996, Barry O'Neill noted he had taken it from a Rounder recording, Just Something My Uncle Told Me, made from the Curtiss tape and edited by Mark Wilson. (Garland, the husband of the legendary Aunt Molly Jackson, is credited with two songs once popular in union and left-wing circles, "I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister" and "The Death of Harry Sims.") O'Neill added that he had heard Tom Gilfellon of the High Level Ranters sing a "nice" version that ended: "Young women are given to frisking and fooling. I leave them alone and attend to my schooling." [ D ] A fourth branch of the family tree tells yet another story: of the lover creeping and crawling into Mary's chamber -- only to be rebuffed. This version, transcribed by Paul Stamler, is from a 1934 recording on Perfect Records by Asa Martin and James Roberts, and rereleased on Oh My Little Darling (New World 245). I dreamed last night I was a-crawling and a-creeping, I dreamed last night I was a-crawling and a-creeping, Crawled in the room where Mary was sleeping, But I ain't gonna do it no more. I stepped on a tack that was sticking in the floor, I stepped on a tack that was sticking in the floor, And bipped my nose on the knob of the door, But I ain't gonna do it no more. Mary woke up and she called the law, Mary woke up and she called the law, The next step I made was the city hall, And I don't want to do it no more. The judge said, "Young man, don't you laugh." The judge said, "Young man, don't you laugh. This crawlin' and creepin's gonna be your last. You'll never want to do it no more." So he gave me nine months for a-crawling and a-creeping So he gave me nine months for a-crawling and a-creeping For going in the room where Mary was sleeping, But I ain't gonna do it any more. Mitch Rice cites in an electronic communication another, and apparently quite similar, 78 rpm record by the Three Tobacco Tags beginning: Late last night I was a-crawlin' and a-creepin'. Late last night I was a-crawlin' and a-creepin'. Late last night I was a-crawlin' and a-creepin'. And I went to the room where Mary was a-sleepin', And I ain't a-gonna do it no more! The "Tobacco Tags," Rice writes, were a white string band from the Raleigh-Durham area in the 1930's. In their version, Mary wakes and calls the law. The narrator concludes: "They gave me nine months for crawlin' and creepin'/And I ain't a-gonna do it no more!" Similar only in that it also uses the A-A-A-B-C-or-refrain stanzaic form is Charles Ingenthron's version contained in Vance Randolph, Roll Me in Your Arms: "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore, Volume I (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992), p. 34. Paul Stamler questions whether this American ballad is, in fact, a version of the British texts. He notes that in the British texts the sex is consensual, in this American version it is not. Further, the oldest British texts center around cutting the drawstring of the man's pants with a "knife in the window" -- an element entirely absent here. (Cray notes that a Freudian might argue that cutting the drawstring is a form of symbolic castration, but after the man and woman cut the drawstring they have sex.) In fact, the various ballads traveling under the alliterative title "Creeping and Crawling" seem to transform themselves easily. They are probably best identified by their relatively unusual stanzaic structure of a repeated first line, then a rhyming third line, followed by a single-line refrain or tag. (Cray notes that the A-A-B line pattern is most common in the traditional country blues of the American South.) The celebrated English folk singer Harry Cox of Norfolk, recorded for Peter Kennedy in 1953 a text with the usual repeated first line, and a nonsense or teasing refrain -- in this case probably borrowed from "The Tinker." It is printed in Kennedy, Folksongs of Britain and Ireland (1975) as No. 178, "The Knife in the Window." In that text, Johnny creeps into Nancy's room and eventually cuts his "breeches" with a knife in the window. Then: All the night long how they rolled and they tumbled, All the night long how they rolled and they tumbled, Before daylight i' the morning Nancy's nightgown he crumpled, With his long fol-the-riddle-i-do, right down to his knees. Nine months later, their child is born. In some British versions, "The Knife in the Window" borrows verses from "Hares on the Mountain" probably as a result of the fact that "Hares" verses use the same stanzaic pattern of A-A-B with the nonsense refrain in the fourth line. For texts of this collected by Cecil Sharp, see James Reeves, The Idiom of the People (New York, 1965), pp. 119-20. "Hares" is, in fact, an older song, descended from the magical transformation contest of the witch and warlock in "The Twa Magicians" (Child 44). See the notes to "Roll Your Leg Over," below. "Sally" is clearly a variant of "Knife in the Window," recounting the tale of the welcome night visit. (Sharp apparently deemed "Hares" and "Sally" to be the same song since they shared similar melodies.) The present editor would suggest that the "A" text here, and its congener "The Sergeant" in Brand and elsewhere, are reductions of the older British ballad "Creeping and Crawling." Because of its stanzaic form, "Creeping" adapts to other tunes ("Hares on the Mountain," for example) and acquires stanzas from still others such as "Sally, My Dear." Possibly there was once a night visit form of the song that attached the sequence of three months, six months, nine months after. Then the little understood "Knife in the Window" business gets trimmed away, leaving something like our "A" text here. G. Legman provides a rambling set of notes about this ballad in his annotation to volume one of the "Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore" collected by Vance Randolph, Roll me in Your Arms (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992). There he asserts that "the true original of all these strains... is "The Snoring Maid" in The New Academy of Complements (London, 1669), pp. 181-82. That statement must be qualified by the observations here. Information about the ballad and its analogues was provided in e-mail correspondence to the editor by Joseph Fineman, Dick Greenhaus, Chuck Larkin, Mitch Rice, John Roberts, Paul J. Stamler and Holly Tannen.