"Jim's one from Mikeen McCarthy is a different one, related to Get Up and Bar the Door."
I know it is Richard - just making the point about the relationship between songs and stories.
Probably the rarest example we ever came across was this, from an elderly Irishman, Mikey Kelleher, who had left his home in West Clare (about three miles from where we live now) where he had been a farm worker and curragh-maker (canvas canoes for fishing off the coast): he and his wife finally settled in Deptford, in South East London.

"There was two old walkers around (Travellers) and they wanted to go across the water and they hadn't enough money.
So they went to the captain, and she was lovely piece, and he said, "I'll be all right there".
She asked him would he be all right to take them across
"All right", he said, and herself and the man went in, he was playing an old fiddle.
And they travelled away; she didn't want to refuse him, you know, in case he wouldn't let them go.
She carries on with him, and he went up to the old boy and says, "I'll bet you this ship", he said, "and cargo against this fiddle" , he said, "that I'll have her before we land".
The old boy bet the fiddle with him and off they goes, and the old boy was listening, he was singing a song:

"Hold tight my love; hold tight my love, just for half an hour,
Hold tight my love hold tight my love and the ship and cargo will be ours"

She said:
"You're late my love, you're late my love, he has me by the middle,
I'm on my back, were having a crack, and you have lost your old fiddle", she said."

We believed the story to be old, and we finally traced it to this, from volume four of John Farmer's Merry Song and Ballads prior to the year 1800 AD.

THE MERCHANT AND THE FIDLER'S WIFE [c. 1707]
[From Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707), iii. 153].

It was a Rich Merchant Man,
That had both Ship and all;
And he would cross the salt Seas,
Tho' his cunning it was but small.

The Fidler and his Wife,
They being nigh at hand;
Would needs go sail along with him,
From Dover unto Scotland.

The Fidler's Wife look'd brisk,
Which made the Merchant smile;
He made no doubt to bring it about,
The Fidler to beguile.

Is this thy Wife the Merchant said,
She looks like an honest Spouse;
Ay that she is, Ihe Fidler said,
That ever trod on Shoes.

Thy Confidence is very great,
The Merchant then did say;
If thou a Wager darest to bet,
I'll tell thee what I will lay.

I'll lay my Ship against thy Fiddle,
And all my Venture too;
So Peggy may gang along with me,
My Cabin for to View.

If she continues one Hour with me,
Thy true and constant Wife;
Then shalt thou have my Ship and be,
A Merchant all thy Life.

The Fidler was content,
He Danc'd and Leap'd for joy;
And twang'd his Fiddle in merriment,
For Peggy he thought was Coy.

Then Peggy she went along,
His Cabin for to View;
And after her the Merchant-Man,
Did follow, we found it true.

When they were once together,
The Fidler was afraid;
For he crep'd near in pitious fear,
And thus to Peggy he said.

Hold out, sweet Peggy hold out,
For the space of two half Hours;
If thou hold out, I make no doubt,
But the Ship and Goods are ours.

In troth, sweet Robin, I cannot,
He hath got me about the Middle;
He's lusty and strong, and hath laid me along,
O Robin thou'st lost thy Fiddle.

If I have lost my Fiddle,
Then am I a Man undone;
My Fiddle whereon I so often play'd,
Away I needs must run.

O stay the Merchant said,
And thou shalt keep thy place;
And thou shalt have thy Fiddle again,
But Peggy shall carry the Case.

Poor Robin hearing that,
He look'd with a Merry-chear;
His wife she was pleas'd, and the Merchant was eas'd,
And jolly and brisk they were.

The Fidler he was mad,
But valu'd it not a Fig;
Then Peggy unto her Husband said,
Kind Robin play us a Jigg.

Then he took up his Fiddle,
And merrily he did play;
The Scottish Jigg and the Horn-pipe,
And eke the Irish Hey.

It was but in vain to grieve,
The Deed it was done and past;
Poor Robin was bom to carry the Horn,
For Peggy could not be Chast.

Then Fidlers all beware,
Your Wives are kind you see;
And he that's made for the Fidling Trade,
Must never a Merchant be.

For Peggy she knew right well,
Although she was but a Woman;
That Gamesters Drink, and Fidlers Wives,
They are ever Free and Common.

Mikey worked all his life in the building trade; back home he was a dancer, but he gave us about sixty songs, all of which we recorded in the car, as he was too shy to sing at home.
He had a large repertoire of short stories like this – one of them told of the blind man who hid up a tree while his wife was havin it off with a young man – a branch catches him across the eyes, miraculously giving him his sight back.
When he sees what his wife is up to he is told, we were only doing it so you could get your sight back (one of Chaucer's Canterbury tales)
Jim Carroll