the wife of a weaver, a powerful athletic woman, had most severely chastised her husband. This conduct the neighbouring lords of the creation were determined to punish, fearing their own spouses might otherwise rebel. They therefore mounted one of their own body, dressed in female apparel, on the back of an old donkey, who held a spinning-wheel on his lap [sic!] and his back towards the donkey's head. Two men led the animal through the neighbourhood, followed by scores of boys, tinkling kettles and frying-pans, roaring with the cows-horns, and making the most hideous hullabaloo, stopping every now and then while the exhibitioner on the ass made the following proclamation:—
"'Ran a dan, ran a dan, ran a dan dan,
Mrs. Alice Evans has beat her good man;
It was neither with sword, spear, pistol nor knife,
But with a pair of tongs, she vowed she'd have his life.
If she'll be a good wife, and do so no more,
We will not ride stang from door to door.'"
From Charles Hulbert's History and Description of the County of Salop, Introduction, p. xxxi. note, second edition, 1838, "printed and published by the author. Providence Grove, near Shrewsbury, and sold by H. Washbourne, London."
"Ran-a-dan" was the correct beginning of a Stang ditty. A woman at Eccleshall, Staffordshire, about 1884, speaking of an unpopular character, said, "He'd ought to be ran-dan'd out o' the town."
The Farmer's Boy.
Kindly procured by Mr. Thomas Powell, of Southey Green, Sheffield, from Mr. James Beddoes, by whom it has been sung, to the air of Auld Lang Syne, at Harvest Homes in Corve Dale, Shropshire, for half a century, and by his father before him. I should be much obliged if any member of the Folk-Lore Society who has heard this song, or seen it in print, would let me know as soon as possible.
"The sun went down behind the hills,
Across the dreary moor.
When, weary and lame, a boy there came
Up to a farmer's door.
