I've wondered where to put this song. I think I'll group it with "Springfield Mountain" until I find a better home for it.

Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song:

Fod

DESCRIPTION: "As I went down to the mowin' field Hu-ri tu-ri fod-a-link-a-di-do, As I went down... Fod! As I went down... A big black snake got me by the heel." The injured singer sits down and watches a woodchuck fight a skunk (and complains about the smell)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (recording, Henry King & family)
KEYWORDS: animal nonsense humorous injury dancing fight
FOUND IN: US(So,SW)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Warner-Eastern, pp. 44-45, "Fod" (1 text)
Lomax-FSNA 213, "Fod" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 222, "Fod" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fuson, p. 159, "A Mighty Maulin'" (twelfth of 12 single-stanza jigs) (1 text, perhaps from this though it's just a loose verse)
ST LoF213 (Full)
Roud #431
RECORDINGS:
Henry King, "Fod!" (AAFS 8)
Henry King & family, "Fod" (AFS 5141 B2, 1941; on LC02)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "(I Can't Be) Satisfied" (words)
cf. "Springfield Mountain" (words)
NOTES: Roud catalogs this as a version of Springfield Mountain. Oy. (Admittedly Warner-Eastern thinks it's a lost ending of "Springfield Mountain.")
I stuck Fuson's single stanza ("As I went down to my old field, I heard a mighty maulin'; The seed-ticks was a-splittin' rails, The chiggers was a-haulin'") here because it sounds like it might be a loose verse of something similar, and because there is nothing else much like it. Roud gives it its own number, 16395, but it's probably a floating verse from something. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.2
File: LoF213

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Thread #10108   Message #1173373
Posted By: Joe Offer
28-Apr-04 - 02:47 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Rattlesnake Mountain/Springfield Mountain
Subject: ADD: FOD

FOD

1. As I went down to the mowin' field,
Hu-rye, tu-rye, fod-a-link-a-dye-do
As I went down to the mowin' field, Fod!
As I went down to the mowin' field,
A big black snake got me by the heel,
Tu-rolly-day.


2. Well, I fell down upon the ground, (3 times)
I shut both eyes and looked all around.

3. I set upon a stump to take my rest, (3)
I (It??) looked like a woodchuck on his nest.

4. The woodchuck grinned a banjo song (3)
And up stepped a skunk with the britches on.

5. The woodchuck and skunk got into a fight, (3)
The fumes was so strong they put out the light.

6. They danced and they played till the chimney begin to rust, (3)
It was hard to tell which smelt the wust.

Source: Alan Lomax, The Folk Songs of North America

Collected by C. Todd and R. Sonkin as adapted and arranged by the King Family, Visalia, Calif., Okie emigrants to Calif. from Missouri. AAFS 8 BI. see: Botkin V, 792; Brown III, 221; White, 203. This is a white remake of Negro animal jingles popular in blackface minstrel era. Tune is one of the Middlewestern variants of the Rattlesnake Song, which has also contributed to Fod.

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There is an identical version of the song in Old-Time String Band Songbook (Cohen/Seeger/Wood), except that the third verse has

It looked like a woodchuck on his nest.

Could it be that the King Family is the only source for this song?

Library of Congress field recordings: https://www.loc.gov/item/toddbib000350/