US & Other Versions 8F. Come My Little Roving Sailor
[This short song is known as a fiddle tune and play-party song. In an area of Virginia along the Blue Ridge foothills (Franklin County and Rappahannock County) Cecil Sharp collected three versions of "Come my Little Roving Sailor" which after the first stanza where made up of stanzas of "Madam I Have Come to Court You."
The first and identifying stanza appears:
Come my little roving sailor,
Come my little roving bee,
Come my little roving sailor,
Roving sailor, will you marry me?
This was sung by Mr. Jacob Sowder at Callaway, Franklin Co., Va., August 14th 1918. The complete text appears:
COME MY LITTLE ROVING SAILOR
Come my little roving sailor,
Come my little roving bee,
Come my little roving sailor,
Roving sailor, will you marry me?
Madam, I have gold and silver,
Madam, I have house and land,
Madam, I have a world of pleasure,
All shall be at your command.
What cares I for your gold and silver?
What cares I for you house and land?
What cares I for a world of pleasure?
All I wants is a handsome man.
Madam, do not stand on beauty,
Beauty is a fading flower;
The best rose in yonders garden
Fade away in one half an hour.
First they'll hug you and then they'll kiss you,
Then they'll call you honey, my dear.
They'll tell you more in half an hour
Than you'll find true in seven long years.
The last stanza is from the "Inconstant Lover" songs and is not part of "Madam." Sharp provided two complete texts and one first stanza which were later published in the second edition of Sharp's "English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians" (1932 edition, Karpeles editor).
Two other play-party/fiddle versions have been reported in the US with a similar identifying stanza:
Come, my little roving sailor,
Come, my little roving bee,
Come, my little roving sailor,
Won't you ring around with me?
Both the version from western Maryland and the version from southwest Pennsylvania have no stanzas of Madam and relationship with the Virginia versions is questionable.
For more details and the various texts, see the main headnotes.
R. Matteson 2017]
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CONTENTS: (Texts are attached to this page on left column)
Roving Sailor- Jacob Sowder (VA) 1918 Sharp C
Roving Sailor- Lucy Cannaday (VA) 1918 Sharp A
Roving Sailor- Sally Jones (VA) 1918 Sharp B