Sweet Willie's Ghost- Dudley (VA) 1936 Davis
[Title assigned. From Davis, More Traditional Ballads of Virginia. His notes follow. Davis doesn't bother to explain the title- yet he writes 3 pages of notes. There's no way the informant would give this title without it being provided- and why is "Willie" part of it?
R. Matteson 2015]
SWEET WILLIAM'S GHOST
(Child, No. 77)
This, and the two ballads that follow, are all ghost ballads and the lore of the supernatural is important in them all. As usual in ballads, the ghost is not a wraith or disembodied spirit but simply a person who is dead and who reappears to the living. The living do not usually recognize the ghostly character of the visitant until the ghost declares himself. Wimberly (p. 45) lists the following motives for the walking of ghosts: to admonish the living; to announce the death of the visitant; to carry off the living; to foretell the death of the living; to foretell the punishments in store for the living in the next world, or to punish or reprove the living; to quiet the excessive grief of the living, since the visitant's rest is disturbed thereby; to secure the return of the troth-plight; to succor the children whom a cruel stepmother has mistreated. In some ballads the motives are mixed.
In "Sweet William's Ghost" the primary motive of the dead lover is to ask back his unfulfilled troth-plight, without which he apparently cannot rest quietly in his grave. In "The Unquiet Grave" the primary motive of the revenant is to forbid the living loved one's excessive grief, which disturbs the dead lover's repose. In "The Wife of Usher's Well" the dead children return in answer to the mother's prayers and grief, and in part to warn her against excessive grieving.
When in "Sweet William's Ghost" the lover comes back from the grave to secure the return of his troth, the girl refuses to return it unless he kiss her or wed her, or both. He then informs her that he is no living man. She follows him to the grave and asks if there is any room for her. Usually there is not. In Child A alone does the maiden die. In other texts she is more often curious than compassionate, demanding the answers to such questions about the dead as what becomes of women who die in childbirth; what of unbaptized children, etc. The troth itself is returned in a number of ways: by means of a wand, by striking her lover with a silver key, or by a touch of her hand. A few later versions give a highly allegorical interpretation to the dead man's graveside companions.
"Sweet William's Ghost" is an extremely rare ballad. Though Child prints seven versions, mostly Scottish, the earliest and best (except for the two last stanzas) from Allan Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany of 1740, the ballad does not appear in recent collections from either England or Scotland. Quite recently, however, the ballad has been reported from Northern Ireland. Marie Slocombe in "Some 'English' Ballads and Folk Songs Recorded in Ireland 1952-1954," JEFDSS, VII (December, 1955), 239-44, reports that among sixty-five separate songs recorded by the British Broadcasting Corporation in Ireland "there is a high proportion of ballads, including sixteen Child ballads, nearly all represented by at least one very good and complete version." Included in the list that follows is "Sweet William's Ghost." In a continuation of Miss Slocombe's article under the same title in JEFDSS, VIII (December, 1956) , 16-28, Peter Kennedy and others have more recently published the text of this and other ballads. The interesting version cited there (pp. 16-17) contains seven and a half double stanzas, as sung by Charles O'Boyle, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 7, 1952. The version does not closely resemble any of Child's. At cock-crow Margaret follows her lover to his grave, and when it opens to receive him she strikes her Willy on the breast with her hand, thus returning his faith and troth. In a note on the ballad (ibid., p. 17), A. L. Lloyd remarks upon the rarity of this ballad" cites no other British texts, and remarks that "even Gavin Greig does not seem to have found it."
The ballad has been recently found, but sparingly, both in the United States and in Canada. It does not appear in TBVa or in Barry or in Sharp-Karpeles. It is, however, apparently well known in Newfoundland. Both Greenleaf and Mansfield and Miss Karpeles give a text from there. Miss Karpeles writes, "I noted nine variants" (p. 24). She also presents a tune. The earliest text published in the United States appears in The Green Mountain Songster, compiled by an old Revolutionary soldier in 1823, The text is printed literatirn in Flanders' Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballad's (p. 240) and more recently in Friedman's The Viking Book of Ballads (pp. 50-51). It contains an intrusion from "The Maid Freed from the Gallows" (Child, No. 95) and, like the Newfoundland texts, is most closely related to Child C, where several apparitions present at the grave are explained by the ghost. The Brown collection (11, 93-94) has a fine text resembling Child A, plus a tune (IV, 48). The death of the maiden as in Child A makes this text unique in tradition outside Child. The editors of the Brown Collection are uncertain of the contributor but believe it to be Mrs. Sutton. A comparison of the text with that given in the Maude Minish Manuscripts in the Harvard Library (Miss Minish was later Mrs. Sutton) leaves no doubt that this is the case, though one stanza which the Harvard manuscript contains does not appear in the Brown Collection text. Coffin gives a reference to an article by Josephine McGill in The North American Review (CCXXVIII, 222), but this turns out to be a fragmentary quotation used for illustration only ancl taken from Sir Walter Scott's version of "Clerk Saunders" (Child, No. 69), hence need not be considered here.
The only other known American text is the present Virginia one. It is of five stanzas, two of them imperfect, and is somewhat corrupted. There is no doubt that it is a version of "Sweet William's Ghost," but there are too many intrusions to associate it with confidence with any particular Child version. Stanza one mentions that it was a moonshiny night when "I heard some one at my window sigh'" This agrees with all versions of the ballad (except the North Carolina one) in setting the scene at night and corresponding lines can be found in other versions. Child F has the maiden in a tower "By the lee licht o the moon," and in Child B the ghost appears "With mony a sad sigh and groan," to cite two examples. The second stanza of the Virginia text appears in all versions of this ballad collectecl, except Child B, F, and G. The third stanza introcluces a corruption reminiscent of "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight," especially in Virginia where the lady in that ballad is often Pretty Polly. More probably, however, it is an interpolation from "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter." In that song the girl is often called Pretty Polly, and the theme of the girl being led to a new-dug grave by her lover who then kills her, might have resulted in the appearance of this stanza in "Sweet William's Ghost." Ordinarily it is the girl who follows the ghost, not by his request as is indicated here. An exception besides the Virginia text is the Greenleaf and Mansfield text (p. 21), where the ghost takes the girl by the apron strings and says, "Follow, follow me." The fourth stanza of the present version has no parallel in other texts of "Sweet William's Ghost" or in "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter." It is perfectly in keeping with the ballad, however, in having the ghost reach the grave yard and open the gates of the burial ground for his love. The last stanza, unusual in that the ghost wishes to ,be kissed, when usually in the ballad he discourages the kiss, finds a parallel of sorts in the Greenleaf and Mansfield text. Like the Virginia text, that one lacks any mention of a troth. Thus the return seems to be only for a final parting to ensure rest for either of the lovers. In Greenleaf and Mansfield the ghost is apparently concerned for the living sweetheart, for he takes her by the lily-white hand and presses her to his breast, wishing her rest. In the Virginia text, it would seem that this final parting kiss would ensure rest for the ghost. It is possible that this stanza has been taken over from "Fair Margaret and Sweet William," where there is a similar ghostly appearance, and a later kissing of the corpse. The stanza is, however, something of a commonplace in ballads of ghostly apparition and farewell. The conventional crowing of the cock as a sign for the dead to return is lacking here.
The rarity of this fragmentary text mitigates its corruption, though the corruption itself is of some interest. The even rarer tune, collected but not located in the Virginia archives, would add value to a ballad not previously found in Virginia, hence not represented in TBVa.
AA. "Sweet Willie's Ghost." Collected by Miss Alfreda M. Peel, of Salem, Va. Sung by Mrs. Hattie Dudley, of Franklin, Va. Nansemond County. December 17, 1936. [The tune noted by Mrs. Kathleen Kelly Coxe, or Roanoke, Va., has been lost.] Miss Peel sent in two texts at the same time, one a "revised version." Since the revised version is slightly superior both metrically and in sense, it is here given, with all the variations indicated in footnotes. Where there are deviations, the whole line is given.
1. One night, one night, 'twas a moonshiny night,[1]
The moon did shine
And the stars gave light,[2]
I heard some one at my window sigh.[3]
2. "Is that brother James," said she,
"Or is it brother John,
Or is it my sweet true love[4]
Who has been gone from me so long?"
3 "Oh come, come on now, Pretty Polly,[5]
And go with me,
I'll carry you over yonder,
. . . .
4. He opened the gates with his own pale hand
And let Pretty Polly through,
. . . .
. . . .
5. He unscrewed the coffin lid,
And threw by the sheets so fine;
Come, come Pretty Polly, kiss my clay cold lips
As you kissed when I left you behind."
1. "One night, one night, was a moon shining bright."
2. Lines two and three of this stanza do not appear in the "unrevised text."
3. "I heard some one at my window sight."
4. "Or is it my own true love."
5."Oh come on now, Pretty Polly."