The Farmers Curst Wife

The Farmers Curst Wife, also known as ‘The Devil and the Ploughman’, and ‘The Devil and the Farmer’, to name but a few, is an English folk song and legend that seems to have been passed down through oral traditions, and was first collected in the early 20th Century. 

It concerns a farmer, who didn’t get on with his wife. So he drove a bargain with the devil to take her to Hell in exchange for a few oxen, but his ultimate aim seemed just to be free of her. Upon arriving in Hell, the wife was so violent and disruptive, that the devil promptly returned her, much to the chagrin of her husband.

A section of the lyrics from a recording in 1857 by James Henry Dixon, went:

“O then she did kick the young imps about;

Says one to the other, Let’s try turn her out.

She spied thirteen imps all dancing in chains,

She up with her pattens and beat out their brains.

She knocked the old Satan against the wall!

’Let’s turn her out, or she’ll murder us all.’

Now he’s bundled her up on his back amain,

And to her old husband he took her again.

’I have been a tormentor the whole of my life,

But I neer was tormented so as with your wife’.”

— Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, James Henry Dixon

Cecil Sharp, an English born folk song collector, also made note of a version of it on his journey to catalogue these types of songs, when visiting the Ritchie family of Viper, Kentucky. Their family version ended with the humorous line:

“Oh the women they are so much better than men, When they go to hell they get sent back again.”

— Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family, 1952

The origins of the folk song may even go back as far as a sixth Century Hindu fable collection called the Panchatanta, but many cultures have had a tale of a shrewish wife who terrifies all, even demons!

It has been retold by many poets and singers, with the poem “Carle of Killyburn Braes”  by Robert Burns based on this ballad, a song by Bill and Belle Reed in 1928 called ‘The Old Lady and the Devil’, and more recently The Shackleton Trio sang ‘The Devil and the Farmer’s Wife’ on their 2016 release, ‘The Dog Who Would Not Be Washed’.

This simple but easy to relate to tale still captivates many modern day folk singers and I doubt it will lose its relevance for as long as men and women continue to marry.

The Farmers Curst Wife is the inspiration for the short story 'You Can Return From Hell in my and Kirsty Logan's zine 'Close Your Eyes and Come With Me' - final copies available here. 

Sources for further reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farmer%27s_Curst_Wife

https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/scottish/kelyburn.htm

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Mxf4QeIvwUJhesfDDE0sv?si=5a0df8757da94996

https://open.spotify.com/track/34rBvpv1JE24MAzwmkmE5Y?si=ac5cb3bc127f4f81

https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/thefarmerscurstwife.html