Openshaw Letter

[fido]

A student's essay I have just marked quotes from Newbell Puckett's Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (Montclair NJ: Patterson Smith. 1968) the following verse:

Did you ever see de devil wid his iron handled shovel,
A-scrapin up de san' in his ole tin pan?
He cuts up mighty funny, he steals all yo' money
He blinds you wid his san'. He's tryin' to git you, man.

The metrical and syntactical similarity of the first two lines to the verse ending the Openshaw Letter is striking, not to mention the identical first eight words. It might be just an extraordinary coincidence, but the possibiity that one of the hoax letter writers had heard this American folk rhyme seems to me more probable than that the Openshaw verses travelled to the cotton fields of Mississippi or Louisiana.
Another possibiity is that there was a range of popular doggerel rhymes starting "Did you ever see the devil, with his..." and going on to describing him as "A-doing" something" with something. I'd be interested to know if anyone has heard of any other
Martin Fido

[Stewart P Evans]

A student's essay I have just marked quotes from Newbell Puckett's Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (Montclair NJ: Patterson Smith. 1968) the following verse:
Did you ever see de devil wid his iron handled shovel,
A-scrapin up de san' in his ole tin pan?
He cuts up mighty funny, he steals all yo' money
He blinds you wid his san'. He's tryin' to git you, man.
The metrical and syntactical similarity of the first two lines to the verse ending the Openshaw Letter is striking, not to mention the identical first eight words. It might be just an extraordinary coincidence, but the possibiity that one of the hoax letter writers had heard this American folk rhyme seems to me more probable than that the Openshaw verses travelled to the cotton fields of Mississippi or Louisiana.
Another possibiity is that there was a range of popular doggerel rhymes starting "Did you ever see the devil, with his..." and going on to describing him as "A-doing" something" with something. I'd be interested to know if anyone has heard of any other
Martin Fido

Martin, I hope all is well with you. Try reading page 68 of Jack the Ripper Letters From Hell. Stewart

[perrymason]

Its really a pleasure to see you both posting here, we all appreciate the opportunity to discuss these issues with you.

I just wanted to offer a thought...might origins of that verse, the style of phrasing and choice of wording, have roots in Europe or the UK...and it migrated to America where cotton field workers learned it from ex Pats?

My best regards.

[Sam Flynn]

Sing-along-a-Openshaw!

Found this (attributed Scottish) fiddle tune, called the "Upper Denton Hornpipe", in a Google Books excerpt from Fiddle Music of Prince Andrew's Island:



In case you can't read the image, the hornpipe has the following lyrics:

Did you ever see the devil with his wooden spade or shovel,
Did you ever see the devil with his tail cocked out?
The potatoes were so big that the devil couldn't dig,
So he ran through the fields with his tail cocked out!

I've created an mp3 file of the tune using a midi sequencing program and plonked it on my website. Ladies and gentlemen, for the very first time, I give you the "Openshaw Song"! It's rather jolly.

You can download, listen or sing along to it by clicking on this link.

Enjoy!

[Sam Flynn]

More shovellings

From the Project Gutenberg e-text of The Awakening of Helena Richie, by Margaret Deland, 1906:

Dr. Lavendar and William, coming from the white glare of sunshine, could hardly distinguish him as he shuffled back and forth among the shadows, except when he crossed the strip of dazzling green light between the bowed shutters, Dr. Lavendar stopped on the threshold; William stood a little behind him.

Mr. Wright was declaiming sonorously:

"--Did you ever see the Devil,
With his wooden leg and shovel,
A-scratching up the gravel--"

He paused to stick a cuttlefish between the bars of a cage, and catching sight of the first figure, instantly began to snarl a reproach:

"I might have been in my grave for all you know, Edward Lavendar; except you'd have had to 'give hearty thanks for the good example' of the deceased. What a humbug the burial service is--hey? Same thing for an innocent like me, or for a senior warden."

[Sam Flynn]

He don't plant taters...

From the New York Times, 16th April 1904

TOPICS OF THE WEEK

Father Tabb, (John Banister Tabb,) priest, poet and pedagogue, of St Charles' College, Ellicott City, Md., writes to tell us in regard to the many replies he has received from all over the country to his request in the Queries Department of The Book Review for varied information concerning the ancient rhyme of the people:

Did you ever see the Devil
With his iron spade and shovel? &c.

Father Tabb has received a great volume of information touching this example of folk-lore, and is still receiving replies to his question from remote points.

In fact, any question of this sort put to readers of The Book Review is sure to call forth many answers. Biographers and historians in search of facts not easily accessible have often found The Book Review the most valuable medium of literary information in this country. We congratulate Father Tabb on the successful result of his quest.

The poem about the potato-digging father of lies and his potato-peeling helpmate does not strike us as an example of political beauty or very illuminative even as folk-lore, but doubtless Father Tabb has found good use for exact knowledge concerning it in his field of literary investigation.

[Mike Covell]

Here is an example taken from "Popular Romances of the West of England"
Taken from the story "Duffy and the Devil" which can be found here,

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe109.htm

'Here 'a to the devil
With his wooden pick and shovel,
Digging tin by the bushel,
With his tail ****'d up!'

Now the online version of the book dates from 1903 and is the 3rd Edition, but there is this page,
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe001.htm which dates the "Preface to the 3rd Edition" as March 1881!

I became intrested in the online collection as "TheLovers of Porthangwartha", found here http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe110.htm, has many aspects in common with Robert D'Onston Stephenson's "Dead or Alive" story.

[Sam Flynn]

Now the online version of the book dates from 1903 and is the 3rd Edition, but there is this page,
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe001.htm which dates the "Preface to the 3rd Edition" as March 1881!

Thanks for the info, Mike. Just to note that the example in Letters From Hell trumps that by a decade¹ - suffice to say that the rhyme, or versions of it, would have been known in some form or another at the time of the Openshaw letter, and that the writer evidently used it as a template.

¹ Edit: Just checked LFH, and the version in there is indeed earlier than, and has practically the same wording as, the version in Duffy and the Devil.

[Cap'n Jack]

But what about the other six lines of the Openshaw letter?
Are we doing splendid isolation here or what?
Do the other six lines reflect this connection, or are we just taking the last two lines, and then infecting the rest of the letter with the disease?

[Mike Covell]

Hi Sam

It seem's to have been a popular ballad, which over the years was adapted to fit into stories of fantastic myths and legends!

I shall give my "Letters From Hell" another good read, I am busy with H.Rider Haggards "SHE" at the moment, and really enjoying it!

[Sam Flynn]

Hello AP,

But what about the other six lines of the Openshaw letter?
Are we doing splendid isolation here or what?

No, we're doing reasoned comparison. We don't need another six lines to make the connection, anymore than the author of the Openshaw letter did.

Do the other six lines reflect this connection, or are we just taking the last two lines, and then infecting the rest of the letter with the disease?

I wrote an analysis of the Openshaw poem way back, now sadly lost due to the Casebook crash, that revealed a complex rhythmical structure which, on reading the various examples above, it shares to a remarkable degree.

Rhythm and metre aside, there are more than enough verbal parallels ("O have you seen/Did you ever see the devil/devle...", "...with his [three syllables] and [two syllables]", "...with a/his [one syllable] cocked out/up") to decide the matter beyond reasonable doubt.

We needn't posit monkeys at typewriters here. The Openshaw poem clearly inherits from this folk rhyme in one of its forms or another.

[Dan Norder]

Just checked LFH, and the version in there is indeed earlier than, and has practically the same wording as, the version in Duffy and the Devil.

Sam,

There's a good reason for that. The Letters from Hell version is from the exact same Popular Romances of the West of England book written by Hunt (the book cited by Mike above) with the exact same "Duffy and the Devil" story... just an earlier printing of that book.

Mike,

Back when Tom Wescott wrote an article for Ripperologist arguing that D'Onston might have been responsible for writing the Openshaw Letter based upon the presumed familiarity with this book because of the similarities between "Dead or Alive" and "The Lovers of Porthangwartha" I pointed out that the motif of a couple promising to marry (or meet again or etc.) whether they be "living or dead" is an extremely common one in folklore. At the time I specifically mentioned "The Suffolk Miracle" as one example, as I was familiar with it because of my research into the origins of a modern urban legend based upon the same general storyline that was going to be the focus of my second folklore book, back before the first one got put on a backburner, but there are lots of other versions. As such there's no reason to assume that D'Onston was familiar with this one particular book. I also pointed out that because lots of people knew more folklore back then, either by being among the "folk" if you will or reading one of the countless books coming out at the time (the Victorian era was a Renaissance period in folklore studies), there's no reason to link any specific book or person to the Openshaw letter.

[Cap'n Jack]

'Old boss you was rite it was the left kidny i was goin to hoperate agin close to you ospitle just as i was going to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte them cusses of coppers spoilt the game but i guess i wil be on the jobn soon and will send you another bit of innerds


Jack the Ripper'

Of course you do Sam.
When I write a letter I might well finish it off with a quote, rhyme or fairy tale.
What do all you lot have under every single post you post?
A little quote from some majestic author or the other.
But this has absolutely nothing to do with the content of your post.
I think you boys would be better employed explaining to me why the writer got 39 spellings right in the body of the letter - not the postscript - and only 16 wrong.

[Cap'n Jack]

'"Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)'
And
'treat me gently I'm a newbie'.

Does that render what came before unimportant?
I think not.

[Sam Flynn]

What do all you lot have under every single post you post?

It represents one of my favourite writers, and also sums up my own "philosophy" on the Ripper, which is to "seek nobodies" - by which I mean I believe that the Ripper would have been a rather "ordinary" human being. It's a quote I like. Over on Howard's forum I use another favourite quote.

Edit: I think I know what you mean, now. About the Openshaw letter, that is. Of course it doesn't render what came before it unimportant - however, the envoi to that letter is clearly half-inched from some folkloric ditty.