The Two Brothers- Marbird McAllister (VA) 1935
[From Wilkinson's MS, version C; Bronson 37.
One area in Virginia (the Brown's Cove region, Albermarle and Green plus neighboring counties) became the repository for a specific version of this ballad (for another ballad see John Hazelgreen). From this region the Virginia Folk-Lore Society, under the direction of C. Alphonso Smith (who died in 1924) and later John Stone and Kyle Davis Jr., collected six texts. Additionally Sharp collected three in 1917; Scarborough- one; Davis again in More Ballads- five; Wilkinson- four; and Foss- one.
George Foss, who wrote an excellent article titled, From White Hall to Bacon Hollow, collected an excellent version from Robert Shiflett (see also Davis A from his sister), who was Raz Shiflett's son. Foss also did an interview with the informant, Marybird McAllister. Following are some excerpts:
R. Matteson 2014]
From White Hall to Bacon Hollow is about a place and about its culture and people. I have granted myself the author's indulgence of selecting a title significant in its double meaning. White Hall to Bacon Hollow is a stretch of twisting country road, Virginia route 810, crossing the line between Albemarle and Greene Counties.
The earliest settlers of importance to the area were members of the Brown family. The patriarch of the Virginia Browns was Benjamin Brown, who began acquiring land in Albemarle County in 1747. He amassed six thousand acres of what was to become known as Brown's Cove. Included in these holdings was a tract patented to him by King George III in 1750.
It is of importance at this point to mention Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., who was a collector of ballads and folksongs specifically of Virginia. He was not a collector in the same sense as Sharp, that is a field worker and face-to-face gatherer of songs. He was more in the mold of Francis James Child, the great collector-editor of English and Scottish Popular Ballads, that is, he served to gather and organize, to sift and evaluate the field work of numerous amateur, hobbyist and professional collectors. As early as 1929 he produced Traditional Ballads of Virginia; in 1949 he published Folksongs of Virginia and More Traditional Ballads of Virginia, all three under the auspices of the Virginia Folklore Society. A courtly gentleman “of the old school,” he was professor of English literature at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for a great span of time. It was professor Davis who was Paul Clayton Worthington's teacher at the University during the 1950's and inspired Paul's interest in balladry and folksong.
Two later collectors who visited and worked in the White Hall-Bacon Hollow area were Richard Chase and professor Winston Wilkinson whose manuscripts are now kept by the University of Virginia. They were the first collectors to record the songs of some of the finest singers in the region, Ella Shiflett and Victoria Shiflett Morris as early as 1935.
Some of the family names still found in northwest Albemarle County and Greene County date from pre-Revolutionary times: Brown, Frazier and Jones. Other names commonly found are Walton, Powell, Sandridge and Wood. But by far the most commonly found are Morris and Shiflett. This makes the tracing of relationships very difficult since various branches of the family are only very distantly related but share the same name. Robert Shiflett (designated “Raz's Robert,” i.e. Erasmus' son Robert, to distinguish him from the region's numerous other Robert Shifletts) speculates that the family was originally descended from French mercenaries brought over by Lafayette to aid the colonies in their War of Independence.
37. [Two Brothers]- Wilkinson MSS., 1935-36, pp. 36-37 (C). Sung by Mrs. Mary McAllister, Grottoes, Va., October 30, 1935.
1. One evening two brothers was going from school;
They fell into a play.
The oldest said to the youngest one:
Let's take a wrestle and fall.
2. The oldest threw the youngest down;
He threwed him on the ground.
And out of his pocket a pen-knife drew,
And give him a deathly wound.
3. Pick me up, pick me up, all on your back,
And carry me to yonder's church yard.
And dig my grave both wide and deep
And gently lie me down'
4. Take off, take off, your woolen shirt,
And tear it from gore to gore.
And wrap it around my bloody wound,
So it won't bleed anymore.
5. He took off his woolen shirt.
FIe tore it from gore to gore.
He wrapt it around his bloody wound,
But still it bled the more.
6. What must I tell your loving old father,
This night when I go home?
Tell him I'm in some lonely greenwoods
A-learning young hounds to run.
7. What must I tell your loving old mother,
This night when I go home?
Tell her I'm at some college school
My books to carry home.
8. What must I tell your loving little Susie,
This night when I go home?
Tell her I'm in some lonely church yard
To never turn back (home) no more.
g. He picked him up all on his back,
And carried him to yonder's church yard.
He dug his grave both wide and deep
And gently laid him down.
10. She took her banjo all in her arms,
. . .
She charmed the fishes out of the sea,
Young Johnny out of his grave.