The Traditional Ballad Index has this as The Crafty Farmer [Child 283; Laws L1]

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[Mudcat is sluggish today, allowing Reinhard to beat me to the Traditional Ballad Index. Here's the text from the Ballad Index. -Joe-]

Crafty Farmer, The [Child 283; Laws L1]

DESCRIPTION: A farmer carrying money from/for a transaction is met by a robber. The robber demands his money; the farmer throws it on the grass. While the robber gathers it, the farmer makes off with the robber's horse and all the wealth in his saddlebags
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1769
KEYWORDS: robbery trick money outlaw escape
FOUND IN: Britain(England(All),Scotland(Aber,Hebr)) Ireland Canada(Mar,Newf) US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,NW,SE)
REFERENCES (33 citations):
Child 283, "The Crafty Farmer" (1 text)
Bronson 283, The Crafty Farmer" (43 versions)
Laws L1, "The Yorkshire Bite" (Laws gives three broadside texts on pp. 73-77 of ABFBB)
Williams-Thames, pp. 253-254, "The Yorkshire Bite" (1 text) (also Wiltshire-WSRO Bk 11)
Greig #35, pp. 1-2, "The Yorkshire Farmer" (1 text)
GreigDuncan2 266, "The Yorkshire Farmer" (9 texts, 7 tunes) {A=Bronson's #25, C=#28 [misattributed in Bronson], D=#27, E=#34, F=#23}
GreigDuncan2 267, "The Farmer and the Robber" (2 texts, 2 tunes) {A=Bronson's #1, B=#3}
Dixon-Peasantry, Ballad #17, pp. 126-130,243-245, "Saddle to Rags" (1 text)
Bell-Combined, pp. 177-180, "Saddle to Rags" (1 text)
Kidson-Tunes, pp. 140-142, "Saddle to Rags" (1 text, 1 tune)
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 406-413, "The Yorkshire Bite" (3 texts, 1 tune); also pp. 477-478, "The Crafty Farmer" (notes plus many stanzas from Child) {Bronson's #31}
Flanders/Brown, pp. 234-235, "The Yorkshire Bite" (1 fragment, 1 tune) {Bronson's #20}
Flanders/Olney, pp. 51-53, "The Yorkshire Boy" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #32}
Flanders-NewGreen, pp. 97-102, "The Yorkshire Bite" (1 text, 1 tune, plus extended analysis including several excerpts) {Bronson's #29}
Flanders-Ancient4, pp. 139-175, "The Yorshire Bite" (9 texts plus 6 fragments, 9 tunes) {B=Bronson's #32, D=#29, K=#20}
BrownII 46, "The Crafty Farmer" [incorrectly listed as Child #278] (1 text plus an excerpt)
BrownSchinhanIV 46, "The Crafty Farmer" (1 excerpt, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 237-239, "Well Sold the Cow" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #26}
Creighton-NovaScotia 14, "Well Sold the Cow" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #19}
Greenleaf/Mansfield 20, "The Little Yorkshire Boy" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #21}
Leach-Labrador 60, "The Yorkshire Bite" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Peacock, pp. 33-38, "The Yorkshire Boy" (2 texts, 3 tunes)
Logan, pp. 127-133, "The Crafty Farmer" and "The Yorkshire Bite" (2 texts)
Leach, pp. 662-665, "The Crafty Farmer" (2 texts)
FSCatskills 117, "The Old Spotted Cow" (2 texts, 3 tunes) {Tune "B" is Bronson's #29}
Thompson-Pioneer 6, "The Kennebec Bite" (1 text)
Gardner/Chickering 157, "John Sold the Cow Well" (1 text plus mention of 2 more)
Sandburg, pp. 118-119, "Down, Down Derry Down" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #37}
Combs/Wilgus 89, pp. 130-132, "The Crafty Farmer" (1 text)
SHenry H51, pp. 129-130, "The Crafty Ploughboy" (1 text, 1 tune)
JHCox 31, "The Crafty Farmer" (1 text)
DT 283, CRAFTBY CRFTFARM*
ADDITIONAL: Katherine Briggs, _A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language_, Part A: Folk Narratives, 1970 (I use the 1971 Routledge paperback that combines volumes A.1 and A.2), volume A.2, pp. 377-380, "The Boy Who Outwitted the Robber" (a prose version of the tale from Scotland)
Roud #2640 and 2637
RECORDINGS:
Warde Ford, "The Oxford Merchant (Hampshire Bite)" (AFS 4197 A, 1938; on LC58, in AMMEM/Cowell) {Bronson's #18}
Leonard Hulan, "The Yorkshire Boy" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 19(79), "The Robber Outdone" ("Come listen a while and a story I will tell"), W. Birmingham (Dublin), c.1867; also Firth c.17(20), "The Robber Outdone"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Highwayman Outwitted" [Laws L2]
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Jack the Plowboy
Jack the Cow Boy
Well Sold the Cow
Selling the Cow
The Boy and the Cow
The Highway Robber
The Scotch Herdie
NOTES: Roud has #2637 for Laws L1 Bite, #2640 for Child 283 - BS
Laws, obviously, considers "The Yorkshire Bite" to be distinct from "The Crafty Farmer." He may be right, but Coffin does not find any essential differences, and Bronson seems to regard them as subgroups. Even the three texts Laws gives for comparison have strong similarities in detail; it looks to me as if they are simply (bad) rewrites of the same original.
Given the degree of variation in the particular verses, it is hard to tell which texts go with which song. Since the versions are so close; I decided not to distinguish them. (One of the few instances where I lumped rather than split, but splitting requires a distinguishing characteristic!)
It's just possible that this has a real-life origin, though I doubt it: David Brandon, in Stand and Deliver! A History of Highway Robbery, pp. 29-31, reports that one Isaac Atkinson held up a young woman, who -- apparently thinking he wanted something harder to recover than her money -- threw a bag of coins in the ditch. Atkinson, instead of either pursuing his seduction or doing anything to control the girl, simply jumped off his horse to pick up the coins.
The girl then flew away on her horse, and by chance his horse followed. She was able to report where she had left him, and he was taken and hanged.
Brandon, however, cites no sources; I almost wonder if his tale doesn't combine this one with something like "Lovely Joan." Or, even more likely, with "The Highwayman Outwitted."
The tale of a robber tricking a man off his horse and stealing it has many more analogies, such as the folk tale of "Jack Hannaford," found in Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern Counties and accessible on pp. 40-43 of Joseph Jacobs, collector, English Fairy Tales, originally published 1890; revised edition 1898 (I use the 1967 Dover paperback reprint). - RBW
Last updated in version 3.0
File: C283

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