"Hog Rovers" comes from "Hog Drovers" (swineherds). There are several variants. B. A. Botkin compares with the UK "Nine Daughters."
Lyr. Add: Hog Drovers
Hog drovers, hog drovers we are, Come courting your daughter so rare and so fair. Can we get lodging here, oh here? Can we get lodging here?
Man sings: This is my daughter that sets by my side, And none of your hog drovers can have her for a bride, And you can't get lodging here, oh here; And you can't get lodging here.
Men hang heads and sing: It's bread for your daughter and hay for yourself, We'll go on a piece farther and better ourselves, And we won't take lodging here, oh here; We won't take lodging here. (March off)
Two more men come up and sing: Rich merchants, rich merchants, rich merchants we are, A-courting your daughter so rich and so fair. Can we get lodging here, oh here? Can we get lodging here?
This is my daughter that sets by my side, And one of you merchants can have her for bride, By bringing another one here, oh here, By bringing another one here.
Girl gets up, catches hands with one man. Man left chooses girl to sit by man in center and rich merchant is left alone. Girl in middle chooses man to march with him. Man and girl march around couple in middle, starting the circle. Same play is repeated with various occupations and results; for example:
Gold miners- accepted. Cowboys- rejected. They sing at leaving: "We've been through Arkansas and bettered ourselves." Man sings on this occasion: "This is my daughter that sets in my lap, And none of you cowboys can take her from her pap." Shool teacher- accepted. Farmers- sometimes accepted, sometimes rejected. Oil drillers- not accepted, etc.
Pearl Mobley, Love Co., Oklahoma, the contributor, said when boys were rejected, the circle jeered and teased them. She also said that they made up new verses all the time.
Version C; tune given for variant A.
B. A. Botkin, 1937, 1963, "The American Play-Party Song," Orig. University Studies Univ. Nebraska vol. 38 no. 1-4; Later Frederick Ungar, New York.