"Wee Cooper O'Fife" (

Roud 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 London ...

117) is a Scottish folk song about a

cooper Cooper, Cooper's, Coopers and similar may refer to: * Cooper (profession), a maker of wooden casks and other staved vessels Arts and entertainment * Cooper (producers), alias of Dutch producers Klubbheads * Cooper (video game character), in ...

who has "a braw new wife" who will not cook, clean, and sew in case she "spoil her comely hue". A town in Fife is called Cupar; this is a pun. Verses get added, with one version having him put a sheep skin jacket on her and beating it. It was recorded by

Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, actor, and author with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own rad ...

on 11 February 1941 for his debut album ''

Okeh Presents the Wayfaring Stranger ''Okeh Presents the Wayfaring Stranger'' (Okeh K-3) is a 1941 album by Burl Ives consisting of four 10-inch records (78 rpm, 6315-6318). This set marked Ives' debut as a recording artist. He accompanies himself on the guitar as he sings 12 folk so ...

''. It has also been recorded by

Hedy West Hedwig Grace "Hedy" West (April 6, 1938 – July 3, 2005) was an American folksinger and songwriter. She belonged to the same generation of folk revivalists as Joan Baez and Judy Collins. Her most famous song " 500 Miles" is one of America's ...

Ed McCurdy Edward Potts McCurdy (January 11, 1919 – March 23, 2000) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and television actor. His most well-known song was the anti-war " Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream", written in 1950. Career Born to ...

, and Ian Campbell. The Wee Cooper O'Fife is also the name of a

Scottish country dance Scottish country dance (SCD) is the distinctively Scottish form of country dance, itself a form of social dance involving groups of couples of dancers tracing progressive patterns. A dance consists of a sequence of figures. These dances are ...

devised by

Hugh Foss Hugh Rose Foss (13 May 1902 – 23 December 1971) was a British cryptanalyst. At Bletchley Park during World War II he made significant contributions both to the breaking of the German Enigma code and headed the section tasked with breaking Japan ...

to fit the tune of the folk song, which is unusual in having ten-bar rather eight-bar phrases.

Similar songs

Other versions of the song are known as "Dan Doo", "The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin" or "Little Old Man Lived Out West".

The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin

"The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin" is an English Child ballad 277. In this song, a man has married a woman of higher birth than him. She scorns the household labor. The man kills a wether (castrated male sheep), skins it, and wraps her in it. He declares that he can not beat her, but he can certainly beat a wether's skin. She recants her refusal and works. In other variants, such as "Ruggleton's Daughter of Iero", he does not have a pretext for beating her.

Dan Doo

Dan Doo is a British folk song that was brought to the United States. It was recorded by the

Wisconsin Folk Song Recording Project The Wisconsin Folk Song Recording Project is a University of Wisconsin and Library of Congress sponsored project carried out by Helene Stratman-Thomas and Leland A. Coon to record folk songs. The collection includes recordings, notes, and photograph ...

. Max Hunter also recorded the song. The version he recorded is part of the Max Hunter Song Collection at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

Frank Proffitt Frank Noah Proffitt (June 1, 1913 – November 24, 1965) was an Appalachian old time banjoist who preserved the song " Tom Dooley" in the form we know it today and was a key figure in inspiring musicians of the 1960s and 1970s to play the trad ...

recorded it on ''Frank Proffitt Sings Folk Songs'' on Folkways Records. It has been published as a children's

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

and a folk song. Versions performed by Fred Smith and Frank Payne have also been recorded. The

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

has a version of the song sung by Charles Dietz and recorded in

Monroe, Wisconsin Monroe, known as "the Swiss Cheese Capital of the USA", is a city in and the county seat of Green County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 10,661 at the 2020 census. The city is bordered by the Town of Monroe to the north and the ...

by Leland Coon in 1946. The Library of Congress has a recording of it.

Risseldy Rosseldy

An American variation of the song, entitled "Risseldy Rosseldy", was sung by the school children in the 1963 film '' The Birds'' right before they were attacked by a swarm of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s. "Risseldy Rosseldy" was also featured as a musical number in '' Wee Sing in Sillyville''.

Popular culture

The song was part of the South Park Season " The Scoots", which is the fifth episode of the 22nd season.

References

External links

"The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin"
{{Francis James Child Burl Ives songs Traditional children's songs Year of song unknown Scottish folk songs Scottish country dance Songwriter unknown