Chuck in Rutland, Vermont, has heard a phrase several times over the years that left him puzzled. If someone announces it’s late and they’re going to bed, and someone else questions that idea, the retiring one observes, Well, it’s dark under the table. This expression is particular to New England and found in the work of several Maine writers, including Stephen King. The Vermont poet James Hayford wrote a poem called “Dark Under the Table.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “It’s Dark Under the Table”
Hey there, you have A Way with Words.
Hi there, how are you? This is Charlie. I’m calling from Rutland, Vermont.
Hi, Charlie. What’s up? What’s on your mind?
I just had an expression I said to my wife the other day, and I picked it up somewhere. I’ve lived all over northern New England. She was going to bed early, and I said, well, it’s dark under the table. She said, what are you talking about? And I said, I don’t know. It’s just an expression that I’ve heard that when somebody goes to bed early, you say, well, it’s dark under the table. So I was just kind of curious about it. And I tried to Google it and I couldn’t really find anything other than dark under the table meant shady, but it wasn’t really used in that term.
Yeah. Was it dark outside?
No, no. It’s usually when it’s, you know, it was like a, it was an old timer in Vermont that said it to me one time. I said something about going to bed in the summertime before it gets dark. He goes, well, it’s dark under the table.
What’s interesting about this is I love that you’re from Vermont and that you’ve been all around New England because it is particular to that part of the United States. Now, you do find it in the early 1840s from all across the United States. It’s an Americanism. But in the last hundred years or so, it’s far more common in states like Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. And so you will find it in the writing of people like the Mainers, Louise Dickinson Rich and Stephen King. And then there’s a poem by the Vermont poet James Hayford called Dark Under the Table, which is really lovely.
It’s dark under the table, but James Hayford goes, most all of you good neighbors go to bed as soon as it gets dark under the table. And I would do the same if I were able. Our daylight steps should earn our daily bread, but there’s no rest in my restless head. And I must pass under every darkened gable, hearing a horse stomp deep within a stable, hearing a wakeful dog growl in a shed. So he, as a Vermonter, probably heard that in his own daily life and made a poem out of it.
That was great. So I’m not crazy.
No, not at all.
Louise Dickinson-Rich, she spent some time in the Goldsboro Peninsula in Maine. And she has a really lovely book published in 1958 called The Peninsula. And she says it was very particular among the lobstermen there to talk about going to bed as soon as it’s dark under the table. And for them, it wasn’t about going to bed early. It’s just because they had to get up so early. They had to go to bed early. But they would say that they pry up the sun in the morning and that they go to bed as soon as it’s dark under the table.
I love that.
They pry up the sun.
Oh, that’s wonderful.
Yeah, because that’s kind of like when we would talk about it. If we had a really early day, go to bed when it’s darker to the table because you wanted to get to bed as soon as you could.
Right. So that’s the first part of the house that becomes dark in any way is under the table, right?
Well, I have never heard this expression, and I love to go to bed early, so I am going to borrow this one, Charlie.
Charlie, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it.
All right. Thank you.
Take care now. Bye-bye.
Bye now.
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