Doc Watson song, also covered by Merle Watson · Old & In The Way · Flatt & Scruggs · John Hartford · Tony Rice · The Stanley Brothers

This is peculiarly a song of the southern Appalachians. Although the habitat of the creature (known also as whistlepig, and in the Northern states as woodchuck) reaches from Canada well towards the Gulf of Mexico, he is the subject of popular song only in the southern Appalachians; the song is known in Virginia (FSVH 246), West Virginia (FSS 498), Kentucky (Shearin 38, LT 30-3), North Carolina (SSSA 5-6, FSSH 388,1 30.2, JAFL xiv IS4-5, v6. BMFSB 38-9), Georgia (FSSH 389), and less definitely the Southern mountains (AMS 92-3). Its appearance in the Ozarks (OFS III 150-3) is doubtless due to immigration from Kentucky. It has not been found in the Northern states, nor is it a Negro song— White reports only a two-line fragment from Tennessee Negroes (ANFS 160). Apparently it originated in the frontier life of the South, probably in the early nineteenth or possibly in the later eighteenth century. Besides the texts here given the Collection has two recordings of it: one from Obadiah Johnson. Crossnore, Avery county, in 1940. and one from Bonnie Wiseman, Hinson's Creek.
Avery county, in 1939.

A. 'Ground Hog.' Contributed by Miss Clara Hearne from Pittsboro, Chatham county, some time in 1922-23. The first line of each stanza is sung twice, making with the refrain a stanza of four lines, as printed bere for stanza 1.

1. Whet up your knife and whistle up your dog.
Whet up your knife and whistle up your dog.
We're going to the hills to hunt a ground hog.
Whack fal doodle all day.

2. Too many rocks, too many logs.
Too many rocks to hunt ground hogs.

3. Over the hills and through the brush.
There we struck that hog's sign fresh.

4. Up came Berry with a ten toot pole
And roused it in that ground hog's hole.

5. Up came Kate and stood right there,
Till Berry twisted out some ground hog's hair.

6 Kate and Berry kept prizing about;
At last they got that ground hog out.

7 Took him to' the tail and wagged him to a log
And swore, by God, it's a pretty fine hog.

8. Meat in the cupboard, hide on the churn;
That was a ground hog, I'll be durn!

9. Work, boys, work, as hard as you can tear.
The meat 'll do to eat and the hide'll do to wear.

10. Work, boys, work for all you'll earn.
Skin him after night and tan him in a churn.

11. They put him in a pot and the children began to smile;
They ate that ground hog before it struck a boil.

12. Up stepped Susie with a snigger and a grin.
Ground hog grease all over her chin.

'Ground Hog.' Received from J. T. C. Wright of the Appalachian Teachers College, Boone, Watauga county, in 1922. Four fine stanzas as in A.

1. I shouldered up my gun and I whistled to my dog,
I shouldered up my gun and I whistled to my dog;
Ise gwine up the mountain for to catch a groundhog.
Law, man, law!

2. I treed him in the mountain and I treed him in a log,
I treed him in a holler and 1 treed him with my dog.

3. I cut a long pole for to twist him out.
Great God a'mighty, what a groundhog stout !

4. God a'mighty, man, just look at Jim!
Groundhog gravy all over his chin.

5. Run here, mama, and run here quick.
This old groundhog has made me sick.

6. Run here, doctor, run here quick.
This old groundhog has made me sick.

7. Ise nebber gwine to cut groundhog no more,
For if I do Ise a dead man shore.

* This text Henry obtained in New Jersey, but it was learned in North
Carolina.

'So in the manuscript; a slip of the pen, apparently, for "by."

'The Ground Hog" Reported by Mrs. Sutton, probably in 1920, with the comment: "This song is a sort of hunting tune, and the loud 'whoopees' in it are most effective when it's sung as a chorus, ... It is very popular, especially with the kiddies."

1 Whet up yer knife and whistle up yer dog.
We're ofi to the woods fur to ketch a groun' hog.

Chorus: Whoopee, whoopee, doodle dal day,
Whoopy doo doodle doo dal day.

2. Cut and trim a long slim pole.
Twis' ole groun' hog out'n his hole.

3. Put that hog in a big tow sack.
Bring him home swung down my back.

4. Skin that groun' hog and tan his hide,
Put my baby gal safe inside.

Mrs. Sutton also reports the following stanza as a "banjo tune," obtained from Reems Creek, Buncoinbe county. The tune was taken down by Miss Vivian Blackstock.

Whet up your knives, call up your dogs,
Go to the woods, catch a ground hog.
Meat's good to eat, hide's good to wear.
Rang tang a fodalink a day !

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