Posted: Jul 19, 2008, 11:39 AM CST
Have you ever wondered where and how yodeling began? (Groan)
Back in the olden days, a man was traveling through Switzerland. Nightfall was rapidly approaching, and the man had nowhere to sleep. He went up to a farmhouse and asked the farmer if he could spend the night. The farmer told him that it would be all right, and that he could sleep in the barn. The man went into the barn to bed down, and the farmer went back into the house.
Well as the story goes, the farmer's daughter came down from upstairs and asked her father, "Who was that man going into the barn?" "That's some fellow traveling through," said the farmer. "He needed a place to stay for the night, so I said that he could sleep in the barn.
The daughter then asked, "Did you offer the man anything to eat"? "Gee, no, I didn't," the farmer answered. The daughter said, Well, I'm going to take him some food." She went into the kitchen, prepared a plate of food, and then took it out to the barn. The daughter was in the barn for an hour before returning to the house. When she came back in, her clothes were all disheveled and buttoned up wrong, and she had several strands of straw tangled up in her long blond hair. She immediately went up the stairs to her bedroom and went to sleep.
A little later, the farmer's wife came down and asked her husband why their daughter went to bed so early. "I don't know," said the farmer. "I told a man that he could sleep in the barn, and our daughter took him some food."
"Oh," replied the wife. "Well, did you offer the man anything to drink?" "Umm, no, I didn't," said the farmer.
The wife then said, "I'm going to take something out there for him to drink." The wife went to the cellar, got a bottle of wine, then went out to the barn. She did not return for over an hour, and when she came back into the house, her clothes were also messed up, and she had straw twisted into her blond hair. She went straight up the stairs and into bed.
The next morning at sunrise, the man in the barn got up and continued on his journey, waving to the farmer as he left the farm. A few hours later, the daughter woke up and came rushing downstairs. She went right out to the barn, only to find it empty. She ran back into the house. "Where's the man from the barn?" she eagerly asked her father.
Her father answered, "He left several minutes ago."
"What?" she cried. "He left without saying goodbye? After all we had together? I mean, last night he made such passionate love to me."
"What?" shouted the father. He ran out into the front yard looking the man, but by now the man was halfway up the side of the mountain. The farmer screamed up at him, "I'm gonna get you! You had sex with my daughter!"
The man looked back down from the mountainside, cupped his hands next to his mouth, and yelled out, ILAIDTHEOLADEETOO!"
And that's how yodeling began.