"The Crabfish" is a ribald humorous

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

of the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...

. It dates back to the seventeenth century, appearing in Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript as a song named "The Sea Crabb" based on an earlier tale. The

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

of the story is that one should look in the

chamber pot A chamber pot is a portable toilet, meant for nocturnal use in the bedroom. It was common in many cultures before the advent of indoor plumbing and flushing toilets. Names and etymology "Chamber" is an older term for bedroom. The chamber pot ...

before using it. Owing to the indelicate nature of its theme this ballad was intentionally excluded from

Francis James Child Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of ...

's renowned compilation of folk songs ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads''. The song has a

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the Londo ...

of 149. It is also known as "The Crayfish".

Synopsis

A man brings a crabfish (most likely a

common lobster ''Homarus gammarus'', known as the European lobster or common lobster, is a species of clawed lobster from the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and parts of the Black Sea. It is closely related to the American lobster, ''H. amer ...

) home as a gift for his wife and puts it in the chamber pot. Some time in the night his wife answers a call of nature and the crustacean grabs her private parts. In the ensuing scuffle the husband gets bitten too.

Text

Variants

"Johnny Daddlum" is the Irish version of this song. There are variants in which the coarse language is more clear-cut than in others. In some variants the wife is

pregnant Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...

, having previously told her husband about her craving to eat crabfish meat. This song has also variants under other names such as "Old She-Crab," "The Crayfish," "A Combat Between an Ale-Wife and a Sea Crab," "The Fishy Crab," and "The Lobster."

Versions

A sanitised version of "The Crabfish," expunging the straightforwardness of the original in order to make the song available for child audiences, was released in recent years. Instead of private parts the crabfish grabs the wife by the "face" and "nose".

References

External links

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Dan and Bonnie Milner sing "The Crabfish" at the 2009 Chicago Maritime FestivalTom Chapin sings "The Crabfish Song" (children version)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crabfish, The English folk songs Irish folk songs Ethnic humour Excretion Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown Songs about invertebrates