# Our Goodman

"Our Goodman" (Child 274, Roud 114) is a Scottish and English humorous folk song. It describes the efforts of an unfaithful wife to explain away the evidence of her infidelity. A version of the song, "Seven Drunken Nights", was a hit record for The Dubliners in the 1960s.

## History and content

The song appeared in David Herd's 1776 compilation Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs. In it a husband (goodman) comes home to find a strange horse there. When he asks his wife what the horse is doing there she calls him stupid and blind, and says that it is a milk cow her mother sent her. The man retorts that in all his travels he never saw a saddle on a cow.
   Our goodman came hame at e'en, And hame came he: And there he saw a saddle horse, Where nae horse should be.
   O how came this horse here? How can this be How came this horse here, Without the leave o' me?
   A horse! quo' she: Ay, a horse, quo' he. Ye auld blind dotard carl, Blind mat ye be 'Tis naething but a bonny milk cow, My minny sent to me.
   A bonny milk cow! quo' he; Ay, a milk cow, quo' she. Far hae I ridden, And meikle hae I seen, But a saddle on a cow's back Saw I never nane.
On subsequent evenings he comes home to find other strange items, such as boots, a sword and a coat, for which his wife gives him equally far-fetched explanations. Finally, he goes to bed, where he finds a "sturdy man", who his wife tells him is a new milkmaid her mother sent her, to which he replies that "long-bearded maidens I saw never nane."
Another version appeared in R. A. Smith's 1823 collection, The Scotish Minstrel, as "Hame Cam Our Gudeman at E'en" ("Home came the husband at evening"). The early verses of this are much the same as in the Herd version, but in the final verse the husband finds a highland plaid, which reveals the stranger to be a refugee from the Jacobite Wars:
   Blind as ye may jibe me, I've sight enough to see, Ye're hidin tories in the house Without the leave o' me.
Francis James Child, in The English And Scottish Popular Ballads (1882), noted the version published by Herd (which he called A), and a different version (B) called "The Merry Cuckold and the Kind Wife", which was published as a broadside in London. In this version the cuckold, named as "Old Wichet", comes home to find, not one, but three horses, swords, boots etc.:
   O I went into the stable, and there for to see, And there I saw three horses stand, by one, by two, and by three.
   O I calld to my loving wife, and 'Anon, kind sir!' quoth she: 'O what do these three horses here, without the leave of me?'
Child's B version was translated into German by Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer [de] in 1789, and later spread to Scandinavia and Hungary. Child gives the first lines as:
   Ich ging in meinem Stall, da sah Ich, ei! ei! An Krippen standen Pferde, eins, zwei, drei. (I went to my stable, there I saw, ay! ay! At cribs were standing horses, one, two, three.)
Another, quite different version, called "Marion", was popular in France and Italy.
The Roud Folk Song Index has over 400 versions of the song, with titles such as "Merry Cuckold", "Old Witchet", "Three Nights Drunk" and "Seven Nights Drunk". Steve Roud and Julia Bishop described it as "an immensely widespread song, probably known all over the English-speaking world, with the wording varying considerably but the structure and basic story remaining the same." Bertrand Harris Bronson listed 58 versions for which tunes exist; he found considerable variety in the tunes, which he divided into eight groups. John E. Housman observed that "There is much of Chaucer's indomitable gaiety in this ballad. The questions of the jealous husband and the evasions of his wife are treated here in a humorous vein".
A version of the song called "Seven Drunken Nights" was a hit single for Irish folk group The Dubliners in 1967, reaching No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart.
A Danish version of the song featured in the historical drama series 1864, where it was sung by soldiers before a battle. It followed Child's B version ("Three Guards' horses stood in a row / And one and two and three").
A Russian version, called "The Drunk Cowboy", was recorded in 2003 by Alexander Tkachev. It consists of five parts, at the end of each the wife tells the cowboy to go to sleep. The days include a horse (cow, saddled) a hat (chamberpot, from straw), pants (rags, with a zipper), a stranger's head (cabbage with a moustache), and, finally, a baby which doesn't look like the cowboy's (a log, but one which pees).

## Recordings

| Album/Single | Performer | Year | Variant | Notes |
| Earl Johnson Vol. 1 1927 | Earl Johnson | 1927 | Three Nights Experience | Document DOCD-8005 |
| Anthology of American Folk Music Vol 1. Ballads | Coley Jones | 1929 | Drunkards Special | Wife's logic fails to explain strange bedfellow to drunkard |
| Complete Recordings | Blind Lemon Jefferson | 1929 | Cat Man Blues | JSP Record JSP7706. Contains one verse and chorus |
| Serenade The Mountains: Early Old Time Music On Record | Gid Tanner & Riley Puckett | 1934 | Three Nights Drunk | JSP Records JSP7780 |
| Deep River of Song: Black Texicans | Percy Ridge | 1943 | Western Cowboy | Rounder CD 1821 |
| Blind Boy Fuller Remastered 1935–1938 | Blind Boy Fuller | 1936 | Cat Man Blues | JSP Records JSP7735. Contains one verse and chorus |
| Cajun Rare & Authentic, Disc D, 1935 – 1939 | Jolly Boys of Lafayette | 1937 | Old Man Crip (Nights 1 & 5) | JSP Records JSP77115D |
| 1947–1948 | Tom Archia | 1948 | Cabbage Head Part 1 and Cabbage Head Part 2 | |
| The Folk Songs of Britain, Child Ballads Vol 2 | Harry Cox, Mary Connors, Colm Keane | 1953 1952 1951 | Our Goodman | Caedmon TC 1146 / Topic 12T 161 Track composed of three fragments from different field recordings Colm Keane's version is in Irish Gaelic |
| 78 record | Douglas Kennedy | 1954 | Hame Cam Oor Guidman at 'Een | HMV B 10836 |
| Blood, Booze 'N' Bones | Ed McCurdy | 1956 | Four Nights Drunk | Elektra – EKL-108 |
| Down and Out Blues | Sonny Boy Williamson | 1959 | Wake Up Baby | Checker LP-1437 |
| Morrissey and the Russian Sailor and Other Irish Songs (EP) | Joe Heaney | 1960 | The Good Man | Collector Records (UK) JEI 5 |
| Traditional Music of Beech Mountain 1 | Hattie Presnell | 1961 | Five Nights Drunk | Folk-Legacy FSA 22 |
| The English and Scottish Popular Ballads: Vol. 1 – Child Ballads | Ewan MacColl | 1961 | Oud Goodman (Our Gudeman, Child 274) | Folkways Records FG 3509 |
| Sing Out! | The Limeliters | 1962 | Pretty Far Out | Modernized American version, Cadillac is a freezer with fins |
| Folk Balladeer | John Jacob Niles | 1965 | Our Goodman or Old Cuckold | Compilation LP later reissued as My Precarious Life in the Public Domain. |
| Single | The Dubliners | 1967 | Seven Drunken Nights | Major Minor MM506. |
| Jack Elliott of Birtley, The songs and stories of a Durham miner | Jack Elliott | 1969 | The Blind Fool | Recorded in a club. Jack is persuaded by the audience to sing the final verse. |
| Ten Man Mop, or Mr. Reservoir Butler Rides Again | Steeleye Span | 1971 | Four Nights Drunk | Pegasus PEG 9 |
| House Party New Orleans Style | Professor Longhair | 1971 | Cabbage Head | Composer: Henry Roeland Byrd/Mac Rebennack |
| The Voice of the People Vol 13 | George Spicer | 1972 | Coming Home Late | |
| Digital Library of Appalachia | Jenes Cottrell | 1973 | Four Nights Drunk | Recorded at the Mountain Heritage Festival in Carter County, Kentucky. |
| Mrs 'Ardin's Kid | Mike Harding | 1975 | The Drunken Tackler | Updated with a Lancashire theme |
| Daft Ditties | Alex Beaton | 1987 | Seven Drunken Nights | |
| Goin' Back to New Orleans | Dr. John | 1992 | Cabbage Head | |
| Irish Beer Drinking Favorites | The Kilkenny Brothers | 1998 | Seven Drunken Nights | . |
| Digital Library of Appalachia | Sheila K. Adams | 1998 | Four Nights Drunk | Recorded at the Berea College Celebration of Traditional Music 10-22-98. |
| Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight | Kristin Hersh | 1998 | Three Nights Drunk | |
| Going Up the Missouri: Songs & Dance Tunes from Old Fort Osage | Jim Krause | 1999 | Cabbagehead | . |
| The Dickel Brothers Vol 1. | Dickel Brothers | 1999 | Three Nights Experience | EMPTY 376 |
| Debasement Tapes | Tom Smith | 1999 | Seven Drunken Nights In Space | Science Fiction filk version |
| Морщина времени | Alexander Tkachev | 2003 | Пьяный ковбой (The Drunk Cowboy) | Russian version |
| Underneath The Stars | Kate Rusby | 2003 | The Goodman | . |
| The Continuing Tradition, Vol 1: Ballads, A Folk-Legacy Sampler | Max Hunter | 2004 | Five Nights Drunk | Folk-Legacy CD75 – |
| The Birds Upon the Tree and other traditional songs and tunes | Alice Francombe | 2004 | The Old Drunken Man | Musical Traditions Records MTCD333 |