Recordings & Info 62. Fair Annie
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Folk Index
4) Child Collection Index
5) Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
6) Wiki
7) Mainly Norfolk (lyrics and info)
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud Number
Alternative Titles
The Sister's Husband
Rosanna
Traditional Ballad Index- Fair Annie [Child 62]
DESCRIPTION: (Annie's) lover is going off to fetch a bride. On his return, he orders Annie to serve his new bride. She does, but that night weeps for her lost lover. The new bride hears and visits her; they find they are sisters. The bride leaves her husband to Annie
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1769 (Herd)
KEYWORDS: love marriage abandonment adultery sister
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North),Scotland(Aber,Bord)) US(Ap,NE,SE) Ireland
REFERENCES (20 citations):
Child 62, "Fair Annie" (10 texts)
Bronson 62, "Fair Annie" (7 versions)
GordonBrown/Rieuwerts, pp. 136-140, "Lady Jane" (1 text, printed parallel to blank pages)
GreigDuncan6 1161, "Fair Annie" (5 texts, 3 tunes)
Lyle-Crawfurd2 110, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
SharpAp 16 "Fair Annie" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #4}
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 446-448, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
Davis-Ballads 15, "Fair Annie" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #3}
Leach, pp. 196-201, "Fair Annie" (2 texts)
OBB 42, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
Friedman, p. 114, "Fair Annie" (2 texts+2 fragments)
PBB 50, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
Combs/Wilgus 16, pp. 114-118, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
Gummere, pp. 247-251+355, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
Hodgart, p. 44, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
DBuchan 9, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
TBB 3, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
SHenry H126, p. 510, "Fair Annie" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 62, FAIRANNI* FAIRANN2*
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #423, "Fair Annie" (1 text)
Roud #42
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Thomas o Yonderdale" [Child 253] (plot)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Sister's Husband
Rosanna
NOTES: Child makes much of the relationship between this song and the lai "le Freisne" of Marie de France. That there are similarities cannot be denied; in the lai, a woman bears twins, and leaves one at a convent to preserve her reputation, and eventually the separated reunite.
But the lai is much concerned with the mechanisms of separation and reunion, which are of no consequence at all in the ballad. It is possible that the two pieces are independent, or at best, entirely separate redactions of a very brief fragment of plot. - RBW
Folk Index: Fair Annie [Ch 62/Sh 16]
Friedman, Albert B. (ed.) / Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-S, Viking, sof (1963/1957), p114 [1800ca]
Friedman, Albert B. (ed.) / Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-S, Viking, sof (1963/1957), p116 [1800ca]
Friedman, Albert B. (ed.) / Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-S, Viking, sof (1963/1957), p117 [1920s]
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p196
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p199 [1917]
Armstrong, Frankie. My Song Is My Own, Plane Label TPL 000-1, LP (1980), trk# A.03
Gentry, Jane Hicks. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 95/# 16 [1916/08/24]
Gentry, Jane Hicks. Smith, Betty N. / Jane Hicks Gentry. A Singer Among Singers, U. Ky, Sof (1998), p145/# 7 [1916/08/24]
Hubbard, Salley A.. Hubbard, Lester A. / Ballads and Songs from Utah, Univ. of Utah, Bk (1961), p 13/# 6 [1947/07/10] (Rosanna)
Seeger, Peggy. Blood and Roses, Vol. 1, Blackthorne ESB 79, LP (1979ca), trk# B.01
Tilston, Steve; and Maggie Boyle. All Under the Sun, Flying Fish FF 663, CD (1996), trk# 4
Child Collection Index- Child Ballad 062: Fair Annie
Child no.-- Artist-- Title-- Album-- Year-- Length-- Have
062 Alex Robb Fair Annie The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
062 Alva Fair Annie Love Burns in Me - Medieval & Traditional Songs and Fiddle Music from Britain & France 2002 No
062 Cindy Mangsen Fair Annie Settle Down 1988 4:29 Yes
062 Elizabeth Nicholson Fair Annie Sink or Swim 2006 No
062 Elizabeth Robb Fair Annie (1) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
062 Elizabeth Robb Fair Annie (2) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
062 Ellen Gozion Fair Annie Awake, Awake 2004 6:31 Yes
062 Frankie Armstrong Fair Annie Encouragement 2008 8:26 Yes
062 Frankie Armstrong, Sandra Kerr, Alison McMorland & Kathy Henderson Fair Annie My Song Is My Own - Songs from Women Over the Centuries 1980 No
062 Jerry Epstein Fair Annie Time Has Made a Change in Me 1995
No 062 LaRena Clark The King's Daughter The Edith Fowke Collection No
062 Martin Simpson Fair Annie The Bramble Briar 2001 6:09 Yes
062 Paddy Tutty Fair Annie Prairie Druid 1992 8:16 Yes
062 Peggy Seeger Fair Annie Blood and Roses - Vol. 1 1979 10:39 Yes
062 Peter Bellamy Fair Annie Peter Bellamy + Fair Annie 2005 6:46 Yes
062 Peter Bellamy Fair Annie Wake the Vaulted Echoes 1999 6:42 Yes
062 Peter Bellamy Fair Annie Big, Broadside & Barrack Room Ballads - the Ballads of Peter Bellamy 2008 6:42 Yes
062 Raymond Crooke Fair Annie <website> 2007- 10:03 Yes
062 Steve Tilston & Maggie Boyle Fair Annie All Under the Sun 1996 6:52 Yes
062 Susan McKeown Fair Annie Sweet Liberty 2004 3:31 Yes
062 Sylvia Barnes Fair Annie The Colour of Amber 2007 No
Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America
by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
62. FAIR ANNIE
Texts: Barry, Brit Bids Me, 446 / Boston Sunday Globe, 4 iS'zo / Child Mss. / Combs, F-S Etats-Unis, 129 / Davis, Trd Bid Va, 177 / SharpC, F-S So Aplcbns,#it / SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplchian I, 95.
Local Titles: Fair Annie, Lady Eleanor, The Sister's Husband.
Story Types: A: Lord Thomas tells his poor and stolen love, Fair Annie, by whom lie has had six sons and is expecting another, that he is bringing a rich bride home. She is crushed, but waits for his return and even serves at the wedding. Later she and the bride learn that they are sisters. (Traditionally this discovery originates in a song sung by the heroine. In America the
song is just unexplained fluting.) The bride offers her riches to this sister and sends her back to the home from which Thomas had stolen her. In some songs a condition that Thomas be hung is made.
Examples: Davis.
B : The added information is presented at the start of the story that Annie was stolen by Indians and ransomed from them by the Lord.
Examples: Combs.
Discussion: A summary of the Child stories (See Davis, Trd Bid Va, 177 is as follows : Annie was stolen in her childhood by a knight from over the sea, to whom she has born seven sons out of wedlock. Her consort bids her prepare to welcome a bride, with whom he shall get gowd and gear; with her he got none. She must look like a maid, comb down her yellow locks, and
braid her hair. Annie meekly assents, as she loves the knight. Suppressing her tears, Annie serves at the wedding and makes the bride comfortable. When the married couple go to bed, Annie in a room by herself bewails her lot in a sad song to her harp or her virginals. The bride hears the song and goes to Annie's chamber to see what is wrong. There, she inquires of Annie's parentage and learns they are sisters. The bride, who had come with many well-loaded ships, gives most of her wealth to Annie and goes home a virgin.
The American versions are invariably compressed and take a lot for granted even if the story is already known a fact that reveals clearly how material becomes unexplainable in transmission. The Type A story follows Child A most closely and retains the names Annie and Thomas (probably borrowed in Britain from 73). The Child Mss. version printed by Barry in Brit Bids Me, 446 (See JAFL, XXVII, 57) is from Massachusetts and differs textually from the southern American versions. The SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplclns, North Carolina text has lost the fluting and is very hard to follow. Combs, F-S Etats-Unis, 129 attributes the presence of Indians in his version to the currency of the ballad on the frontier. See Type B.
Fair Annie From Wikipedia
Synopsis
A lord tells Fair Annie to prepare a welcome for his bride, and to look like a maiden. Annie laments that she has borne him seven sons and is pregnant with the eighth; she can not look like a maiden. She welcomes the bride but laments her fate, even wishing her sons evil, that they might be rats and she a cat. The bride comes to ask her why she grieves, and then asks her what her family was before the lord stole her. Then she reveals that she is Annie's full sister and will give her her dowry, so that Annie can marry the lord instead of her; she is a maiden still and so can return home.
Variants
Several Scandavian variants exist: the Swedish Skön Anna and the Danish Skjön Anna. In them, the hero is a man who has newly become king, after the death of his father; his long-term leman, Anneck, tries to get him to make her his wife, and the queen mother supports her. When the son refuses and choses a bride, Anneck wishes to speak with her; the queen mother brings her to the other woman, and her account makes the bride make the realization.[2]
Marie de France retold this story in her lai, Le Fresne, where the heroine is not kidnapped but abandoned with birth tokens; she was one of a pair of twins, which was regarded as proof of adultery, and a servant abandoned her to save her life. The bride in Le Fresne is, in fact, the other twin.[3]
Motifs
In some variants of Hind Etin, the captive mother expresses her grief in hostility to her children in the same language as this ballad.[4]
Recent Recordings
Guitarist and singer Martin Simpson recorded a version of Fair Annie on his 2001 album The Bramble Briar in his distinctive finger-picking style.
References
1.^ Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "Fair Annie"
2.^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 65, Dover Publications, New York 1965
3.^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 67-8, Dover Publications, New York 1965
4.^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 361, Dover Publications, New York 1965
Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music-Fair Annie
[Roud 42; Child 62 ; Ballad Index C062 ; trad.]
Fair Annie was told by Marie de France in Lai del Freisne about 1200, and has migrated across Europe, “not appearing in the Scottish record until the second half of the 18th century,” according to a note in Bronson. It is the title track of Peter Bellamy's privately issued cassette of 1983, Fair Annie. Peter Bellamy compiled it from versions in Bronson's Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads. This recording was also included in 1999 on the Peter Bellamy anthology Wake the Vaulted Echoes.
Frankie Armstrong sang Fair Annie in 1980 on the LP My Song Is My Own and in 2008 on her CD Engouragement.
Martin Simpson sang Fair Annie in 2001 on his CD The Bramble Briar. He commented in his album notes:
Fair Annie was given to me on a cassette of a show that Peter [Bellamy] did at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. My friend Josh Michaell thought that I might like the song and, indeed, he was right. I looked for other versions, but found nothing so succinct, or with such a sting in the tail. I wonder to what extent Peter altered the lyrics.
Lyrics
Peter Bellamy sings Fair Annie
“Comb back your hair, Fair Annie,” he said,
“Comb it back into your crown.
For you must live a maiden's life
When I bring my new bride home.”
“Oh, how can I look maidenlike
When maiden I am none?
For six fair sons have I had by you
And a seventh coming on?”
“Oh, you will bake my bread,” he said,
“And you will keep my home.
And you will welcome my lady gay
When I bring my bridal home.”
And on the door he's hung a silken towel,
Pinned by a silver pin,
That Fair Annie she might wipe her eyes
As she went out and in.
Now, six months gone and nine comin' on
And she thought the time o'er-long.
So she's taken a spyglass all in her hand
And up to the tower she has run.
She has look-ed east, she has look-ed west,
She has looked all under the sun,
And who should she see but Lord Thomas
All a-bringin' of his bridal home.
So she has called for her seven sons
By one, by two, by three,
And she has said to her eldest son,
“Oh, come tell me what you see.”
So he's look-ed east, he has look-ed west,
He has looked all under the sun.
And who should he see but his father dear,
He was bringin' of his new bride home.
So it's, “Shall I dress in green?” she said,
“Or shall I dress in black?
Or shall I go down to the ragin' main
And send my soul to wrack?”
“Oh, you need not dress in green,” he said,
“Nor you need not dress in black.
But throw you wide the great hall door
And welcome my father back.”
So it's, “Welcome home, Lord Thomas,” she said,
“And you're welcome unto me.
And welcome, welcome, your merry men all
That you've brought across the sea.”
And she's serv-ed them with the best of the wine,
Yes, she's serv-ed them all 'round.
But she's drunk water from the well
For to keep her spirits down.
And she's wait-ed upon them all the livelong day,
And she thought the time o'er long.
Then she's taken her flute all in her hand
And up to her bower she has run.
She has fluted east, she has fluted west,
She has fluted loud and shrill.
She wished that her sons were seven greyhounds
And her a wolf on the hill.
Then, “Come downstairs,” the new bride said,
“Oh, come down the stairs to me.
And tell me the name of your father dear,
And I'll tell mine to thee.”
“Well, King Douglas it was my father's name
And Queen Chatten was my mother;
And Sweet Mary, she was my sister dear
And Prince Henry was my brother.”
“If King Douglas it is your father's name
And Queen Chatten is your mother,
Then I'm sure that I'm your sister dear
As Prince Henry, he is your brother.”
“And I have seven ships out on the sea
They are loaded to the brim.
And six of them will I give to you
And one more to carry me home.
Yes, six of them will I give to you
When we've had Lord Thomas burned!”