285
Man Killed by Falling from a Horse
From Miss Jewell Robbins, Pekin, Montgomery county (later, Mrs.
C. P. Perdue, Gastonia) ; c. 1924; with music. Note by Dr. Brown:
"Happened in Richmond county but name of the man not recalled."
The ballad reminds us of 'Springfield Mountain.'
1 Come ye youths of every age,
Give ear unto my song.
A mournful story I'll relate
As ever you did hear.
A young man in the bloom of youth,
His age near twenty-one,
November last, the eleventh day
Of eighteen hundred and one.
2 'Twas early one morning he rode away
Upon his friends to call.
As he returned this solemn day
He from his horse did fall.
But how he fell was never known
Because he was alone.
There was no one there when he fell
To hear his expiring groans.
3 The people gathered from every part
To bear the corpse away.
660 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
The tears did flow from every eye ;
It was a solemn day.
His mother wept from day to day
For the loss of her lovely son.
His father cried most bitterly,
'Oh, Lord, his work is done,'
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28s
Man Killed by Falling from a Horse
'Man Killed by Falling from a Horse.' Sung by Miss Jewell Robbins. Recorded
at Pekin, Montgomery county, about 1924.
Mrs. Perdue, formerly Miss Jewell Robbins, in a letter written to the present
editor after a visit he paid to her home in Gastonia, said : "Also I am wishing
more information had been written about 'Man Killed by Falling from a Horse.'
He was a young man by the surname of Polk, from Richmond county. On his
return from a business trip to Pekin sometime before the War between the
States, he was thrown from his horse, hit his head against a heart pine stump
and was killed. That stump was near our cottage home at the edge of the vil-
lage of Pekin. Of course, I didn't enjoy going by that stump alone, when I
was a child. The song was supposed to have been composed by his twin
brother."
For a similar title and beginning, cf. BMNE 167. Measures 3-8 are closely
related to those of Mrs. James York's version of 'Maid Freed from the Gallows,'
No. 30R of this collection.
Hexatonic (6), plagal. Tonal Center: g. Structure: abcb^ (4,4,4,4).