AtDDtA1: "Katie Bar the Door"

[Dave Monroe]

"'When they're after a fellow, legal ain't got nothing to do with
it--it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door.'" (AtD, Pt. I, p.
8)


"Katie bar the door"

The phrase Katy bar the door! (also as Katy bar the gate!; sometimes
written as Katie) is a very American exclamation, more common in the
South than elsewhere, meaning that disaster impends — "watch out",
"get ready for trouble" or "a desperate situation is at hand".

Where it comes from is uncertain. Jonathan Lighter, in the Random
House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, finds a first example
from 1902. I've done slightly better than that, having found the
phrase in a poem called "When Lide Married Him" by James Whitcomb
Riley, which was published in a collection called Armazindy in 1894. A
young lady marries a known drunkard against family advice and forcibly
reforms him. One stanza ends with the line: "When Lide married him, it
wuz 'Katy, bar the door!' ", suggesting trouble ensued.

It seems clear, though, that this isn't where the phrase came from.
The one useful comment I can find in print is in William and Mary
Morris's book The Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, based on a
comment from Nancy Britt of Arkansas. She suggested it came from a
traditional ballad. The one she is presumably referring to is medieval
Scots, usually entitled Get Up and Bar the Door, which is still widely
known and sung. But no version I've found mentions Katy anywhere.

The wife wants her husband to bar the door because the wind blows in
and disturbs her at her cooking. The husband doesn't want to be
bothered to get up and do it. They agree after an argument that the
first person who speaks will be the loser and will have to bar the
door. Neither speaks, and neither bars the door. At night, robbers
enter through the open door and eat the food the wife has prepared.
Neither husband nor wife says anything because of their agreement and
their stubborn refusal to be the first to give way. However, when the
robbers propose to cut off the husband's beard and kiss the wife (I
assume these are euphemisms), the husband rises up in a rage and
shouts at the thieves, at which the wife rejoices:

    Then up and started our goodwife,
    Gied three skips on the floor:
    "Goodman, you've spoken the foremost word,
    Get up and bar the door."

Though the ballad is actually a wry look at marital obstinacy and its
consequences, the most direct lesson is that not barring the door has
led them to trouble. Barring the door with the intruders inside wasn't
such a smart move, either. So it is possible that the injunction, "bar
the door!", was adapted from it to suggest there is unpleasantness
ahead.

However, many subscribers have pointed to a quite different story,
also from Scotland, involving one Catherine Douglas. King James I of
Scotland, a cultured and firm ruler, was seen by some of his
countrymen as a tyrant. Under attack by his enemies while staying at
the Dominican chapter house in Perth on 20 February 1437, he was holed
up in a room whose door had the usual metal staples for a wooden bar,
but whose bar had been taken away. The legend has it that Catherine
Douglas, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, tried heroically to
save James I by barring the door with her naked arm. Her attempt
failed, her arm being broken in the process, and the King was
murdered, but she was thereafter known as Catherine Barlass.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote a poem about her in 1881, entitled The
King's Tragedy, of which one stanza is:

    Like iron felt my arm, as through
    The staple I made it pass: —
    Alack! it was flesh and bone — no more!
    'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
    But I fell back Kate Barlass.

This is as circumstantial a basis for the expression Katie bar the
door as the one above, but it is much stronger in its romantic
associations and therefore rather more probable a source.

However, the nearest that Rossetti comes to the conventional
expression in the poem is "Catherine, keep the door!". In its favour
as a source is that the first example of Katy, bar the door! is from
only 13 years after the poem was published. But why it should have
appeared first in the USA rather than Britain is unclear, as is why it
should have appeared at all!

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kat1.htm

Katy, Bar The Door

The expression Katy, bar the door means to watch out or serves as a
warning of impending disaster. It dates to at least 1902 when it
appears in Hugh McHugh's (George V. Hobart's) It's Up to You:

    It was "Katie, bar the door" with her.

But who was Katy (or Katie) and why was she locking the door?

We don't know for certain, but the expression is probably a reference
to an incident in Scottish history. On 20 February 1437, King James I
of Scotland was assassinated while staying at the Dominican
chapterhouse in Perth and the Katy in question was one of the queen's
ladies-in-waiting who tried to save him.

Her full name was Catherine Douglas, popularly known as Kate Barlass.
A band of murderers, led by nobleman Robert Graeme, had entered the
chapterhouse in search of the king. The king's chamberlain, Robert
Stuart, was in on the plot and had removed the locks and bolts
securing the door of king's chamber. In an attempt to prevent the
murderers from entering the room, Catherine used her arm in place of a
bolt. The murderers broke the door, and her arm, and succeeded in
killing the king. Her descendants to this day bear a broken arm on
their family crest and keep the name Barlass.

In 1881, the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti published a
popular poem called The King's Tragedy that told the story of
Catherine Douglas. Rossetti's poem does not use the modern phrase, but
it undoubtedly helped bring the story to the modern consciousness:

    Then the Queen cried, "Catherine, keep the door,
    And I to this will suffice!"
    At her word I rose all dazed to my feet,
    And my heart was fire and ice.

    [. . .]

    And now the rush was heard on the stair,
    And "God, what help?" was our cry.
    And was I frenzied or was I bold?
    I looked at each empty stanchion-hold,
    And no bar but my arm had I!

    Like iron felt my arm, as through
    The staple I made it pass:—
    Alack! it was flesh and bone—no more!
    'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
    But I fell back Kate Barlass

The chief argument against this explanation is that the modern phrase
appears to be American in origin. But Rossetti's poem was published in
the US and it is not inconceivable that an Americanism could be rooted
in a Scottish folk-tale.

(Sources: Historical Dictionary of American Slang; Rossettiarchive.org)

http://www.wordorigins.org/Words/LetterK/katybarthedoor.html

There seem to be two leading theories about "Katy bar the door."  The
first, which I mentioned in a column a few years ago, traces it to an
old English folk song.  Etymologist Michael Quinion, writing on his
excellent World Wide Words web site (http://www.quinion.com/words),
subsequently lent a bit more substance to this theory by suggesting
the venerable Scots ballad usually known as "Get Up and Bar the Door."
 In the song, a wife and husband are arguing about who will bar the
door at bedtime, and agree that the next one to speak will lose the
argument and have to bar the door.  Both stubbornly hold their tongues
and the door remains unbarred.  Predictably, robbers break in during
the night and commit various outrages against the pair.  When the
intruders finally provoke the husband to cry out, the wife helpfully
observes that he has lost the argument and thus (though it is far too
late to do any good) must go bar the door.  While this song does not
specify "Katy" as the wife's name, a version of it may have been the
source of the phrase.

However, it is more likely, says Quinion, that "Katy bar the door" is
drawn from "The King's Tragedy," a poem by Gabriel Dante Rossetti
written in 1881.  In 1437, King James I of Scotland was attacked by
his enemies while staying in a room with no bar for the door.  His
Queen's lady-in-waiting, Katherine Douglas, is said to have valiantly
tried to bar the door with her own arm.  Her arm was, unfortunately,
broken in the attempt, and the King slain.  It is entirely possible
that the King's cry of "Katherine, keep the door!" in Rossetti's poem
became the popular expression "Katy bar the door," but it remains to
be explained how the phrase happened to first appear 13 years later in
America.

http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html

http://www.word-detective.com/back-e2.html


Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The King's Tragedy (1881)

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/5-1881.fizms.rad.html#5-1881

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/5-1881.huntms.rad.html#5-1881


R.E.M., "Sitting Still" (1983)

http://www.remrock.net/remrock/lyrics/albums/murmur.html?song=sitting

http://www.flim.com/remlafaq/murmur/sittingstill.html


Cledus T. Judd, "Katie Bar the Door"

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/cledus-t-judd/katie-bar-the-door-3116.html

http://www.cledus.com/