The Crafty Farmer is
Child ballad
The Child Ballads are List of the Child Ballads, 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies ...
283, existing in several variants.
Synopsis
A farmer is traveling with a sum of money—sometimes because he must pay his rent for a long period of time, sometimes because he has sold a cow—when he falls in with a highwayman. He either admits to the money, or the highwayman has overheard where he keeps it. The highwayman demands it and the farmer throws the money (in saddlebags or sewed in coat) off the road. The highwayman goes after it, and finds it empty, or filled with straw. The farmer steals the highwayman's horse, and finds valuables in the highwayman's saddlebags.
See also
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List of the Child Ballads
is the colloquial name given to a collection of 305 ballads collected in the 19th century by Francis James Child and originally published in ten volumes between 1882 and 1898 under the title ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.''
The ba ...
External links
The Lincolnshire Farmer
Child Ballads
Songs with unknown songwriters
Year of song unknown
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