Eggs and Marrowbone - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

"Eggs and Marrowbone" is a traditional folk song

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

from the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

.

A version of the lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

from the Appalachians is:

There was an old woman in our town

In our town did dwell

She loved her husband dearly

But another man twice as well

She went down to the doctor

To see what she could find

To see what she could find, Sir

To make her old man blind

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

"Feed him eggs

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

and marrowbone

And feed them to him all,

And that will make him so darned blind

He can't see you at all."

So she fed him eggs and marrowbone

Fed them to him all,

And that did make him so darned blind

He couldn't see her at all

"So now I'm getting old and blind

And tired of my life

So I'll go and drown

Drowning

Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....

myself

And that will end my strife"

"To drown yourself," said she, said she,

"Now that would be a sin.

So I'll go down to the river's edge

And kindly push you in."

The old woman took a running jump

To push her old man in.

The old man he just stepped aside

And the woman she fell in.

She yelled for help, she screamed for help;

Loudly she did bawl.

The old man said "I'm so gol-darned blind

I can't see you at all!"

So she swam along, swam along,

Till she came to the river's brim.

The old man got a great long pole

And pushed her further in.

Now the old woman is dead and gone

And the Devil

Devil

The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...

has got her soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

Wasn't she a blamed old fool

That she didn't grab that pole?

Eating eggs and marrowbone

Won't make your old man blind;

So if you want to do him in

Just creep up from behind.

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