Bluegrass Messengers

4. Molly Bawn (Polly Vaughn/Shooting of his Dear)

Illustration of "Molly Bawn" by Charles Gibson (1867-1944)

Narrative: 4. Molly Bawn (Polly Vaughn/The Shooting of his Dear)

A. "A Song, call'd Molly Bawn" was published in The Bottle and Frien'ds Garland; Containing Four Excellent New Songs. I. Damon and Phillis. II. The Bottle and Friend. III. A New Song. IV. Molly Bawn. V. The Macaroni; transcribed by Steve Gardham from the British Library 11621.c.3(4.), printed 1765.

Ba. "Mally Bann" was published in a Scottish chapbook in 1793 the contents of ballads are: Logie O' Buchan, Mally Bann, Grigel Maccree, The Young Man's Love to the Farmer's Daughter, and The Braes of Ballanden.
b. A twelve stanza version titled "Mally Bann" was published in a chapbook "The British volunteers. To which are added, God save the king. Mally Bann. Tippling John. Johny Faa, the gypsie laddie" which was printed by J. & M. Robertson, Saltmarket, Glasgow, 1799. BL 11606. aa. 23. 24.2.

Ca. "The Youth's Grievance, or the Downfall of Molly Bawn" of 10 stanzas appeared in a Belfast garland 1797.
b. Molly Brown [sic] dated c.1804, appeared in "The Morning's Golden Dawn, or Answer to the Dawning of the Day" To Which is Added "Molly Brown'." (Galway: G. Connolly, Ca.). A copy is in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

D. "Molly Whan" dated c.1802 was printed and sold by J. Pitts 14 Great St. Andrew street, 7 Dials, London.

E. "Peggy Baun" obtained "from his much-valued friend, professor Scott, of King's College, Aberdeen" who had taken it "from the recitation of one of his maidservants" about 1803.

F. "Polly Wand, together with the Beggar girl, and Tom Starboard," Isaiah Thomas Broadside Ballads Project, BIB ID: 284426. Boston, MA; c. 1810.

G. "Mollie Vaughn" dated c.1814 from Cox, 1925. Communicated by Mr. C. R. Bishop, Green Bank, Pocahontas County, West Virginia in 1917; obtained from Miss Valera Ervine, who got it from her mother, who had it from her mother, who got it from an aunt, who got it from her grandfather, all natives of West Virginia and untravelled.

H. Molly Bawn dated c. 1834 is a broadside by Haly, a printer in Cork, Ireland; Bodleian; Slip 2806 c.18(209) teamed with Miss Patty Puff and her two Sweethearts.

I. "Molly Baun Lavery" dated pre1838 as sung by Sally Sloane; Australian Irish version; passed down from her grandmother Sarah Alexander, who came out from County Kerry, Ireland in 1838.

J. "Molley Bann Lavery" pre1845 from John Hume's MS taken down in County Down, Ireland from oral tradition; published by Hugh Shields in 1971.

K. "Polly Band" pre1850 From the Lambertson manuscript. Mr. Charles Lambertson remembers hearing his mother sing this song.The informant was born in Seneca County, Ohio, in 1838 of Holland-Dutch parents and moved to Michigan in 1860.

La. "An Admred Song called Young Molly Bawn" --Crawford.EB.1875 [Dublin? : s.n., ca. 1860?] National Library. Other title: Rocking the cradle.
b. "An Admred Song called Young Molly Bawn" Imprint Names: Nugent, J.F. & Co. (Bodleian Library)
c. "An admired Song called YOUNG Molly Bawn" single sheet with Breennan on the Moor (Bodleian Library)

M. "Polly von Luther and Jamie Randall" J. Andrews, Printer, 38 Chatham St., NY; c. 1857.

Na. "A True Story- Called Molly Bawn" Street Ballads, Popular Poetry and Household Songs of Ireland; published by McGlashan & Gill Company, Dublin, 1864-5. Collected and arranged Duncathail [pseud. for Ralph Varian].
b. "A True Story- Called Molly Bawn" The Universal Irish Song Book: A Complete Collection of the Songs; Patrick John Kennedy 1894, New York.

O. "Molly Bawn" dated pre1870 "learned it from the intelligent singers of my early days," from Old Irish folk music and songs: a collection of 842 Irish airs and songs, hitherto unpublished by Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland by Patrick Weston Joyce (1827-1914); published 1909.

P. "Molly Bawn," The Banks of the Boro: A Chronicle of the County of Wexford by Patrick Kennedy; Published McGlashan and Gill in Dublin in 1875.

Q. "At the Setting of the Sun" Baring-Gould's version was published in Songs of the West, 1905- attributed to Sam Fone of Mary Tavy in Devon, July 12, 1893.

R. "Mollie Vaunders." Folk Songs of the South, 1925 by John Harrington Cox. Communicated by Miss Violet M. Hiett, Great Cacapon, Morgan County, February, 1917; obtained from Mrs. D. S. Stump, Hampshire County, who learned it in Ohio about 1885.

S. "Molly Bawn." Littell's Living Age, Volume 210, edited by Eliakim Littell, Robert S. Littell; 1896. From the article An Irish Peasant Woman by Katherine Tynan Hinkson as sung by Hannah Quinn of Cork, before 1896.

Ta. "Polly Vann." G. L. Kittredge, "Ballads and Songs," Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 30. Child MSS., Harvard College Library, ii, 107-108, in the hand of the late Mr. W. W. Newell. "From Mrs. Ellis Allen, West Newton, Mass., born in Scituate, now 89 years old." (See F, Polly Wand)
b. "Polly Van." Folk Songs of Old New England; Linscott, 1939. Sung by Lucy Allen of West Newton, Massachusetts. It was passed down to her through the Allen family.
c. "Polly Van." Sung by Paul Clayton; Bay State Ballads FW02106 / FA 2106, released in 1956.
d. "Polly Wand" The Diary of the American Revolution, 1775-1781, p. 239- 240 by Frank Moore, ‎John Anthony Scott (1967) and also Sing Out, 1967.

Ua. "Shooting of his Dear." Folk Songs from Somerset by Cecil James Sharp, Charles Latimer Marson; 1905. Reprinted 1906 JFSS. Tune and words from Mrs. Lucy White of Hambridge, 1903.
b. "The Swan." Henry Hammond Manuscript Collection (HAM/3/16/19). Sung by J. Handsford of Dorset, 1906.
c. "The Swan." Henry Hammond Manuscript Collection (HAM/3/18/23). Sung by Henry Way of Dorset, 1906.

Va. "Mollie Bond." G. L. Kittredge, "Ballads and Songs," Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 30. From Miss Loraine Wyman, as sung by Lauda Whitt, McGoffin County, Kentucky, 1916.
b. Molly Baun." G. L. Kittredge, "Ballads and Songs," Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 30. From Miss Wyman, as sung by Sallie Adams, Letcher County, Kentucky, May, 1916.
c. "Polly Bam." English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians (1917 and 1932) by Olive Dame Campbell, Cecil James Sharp, ed. Maud Karpeles. Sung by Jane Hicks Gentry at Hot Springs, N. C, Aug. 25, 1916.
d. "Mollie Van." English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians (1917 and 1932) by Olive Dame Campbell, Cecil James Sharp, ed. Maud Karpeles. Sung by Mrs. Addy Crane at Flag Pond, Tenn., Aug. 31, 1916.

Wa. The Fowler- Songs Collected in Norfolk by E. J. Moeran, A. G. Gilchrist, Frank Kidson, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lucy E. Broadwood; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 26 (Dec., 1922). Sung by Walter Gales of Norfolk 1921
b. The Fowler- Recorded for BBC in 1947; additional recording 1953 Harry Cox (Norfolk) 1947 REC

Xa. "Molly Bond." Karpeles; Folk Songs from Newfoundland; 1934. Sung by Mr. Thomas Ghaney at Colliers, Conception Bay, 22nd October 1929.
b. "Molly Bawn." Tape FO 74, Side 2 of Edith Fowke Tapes 1-94, York University (Library), Toronto, 1960. Reprinted Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1986), sung by Tim McGrath of Erinsville, Ontarion in August 1960.

Y. "Young Molly Ban." Irish Street Ballads, by Colm O'Lochlainn; Dublin 1939; from P. Walsh, Clogher Valley c. 1938.

Za. "Polly Band." Ballads and Songs from Ohio, Eddy, 1939. Sung by Mrs. S. T. Topper, Ashland, Ohio.
b. "Molly Bawn." Ballads and Songs of the Upper Hudson Valley" by Sarah Cleveland; recorded in 1966.
c. "Molly Vaughan." sung by Colleen Cleveland, Brant Lake, NY in 1997. Recorded by Gwilym Davies. Colleen learnt the song from her grandmother, Sarah Cleveland.

AAa. "Molly Bawn." As recorded by Séamus Ennis in 1947 and 1952 from the singing of Elizabeth Cronin.
b. "Molly Bawn." Some English Ballads and Folk Songs Recorded in Ireland, 1952-1954 by Marie Slocombe; Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Dec., 1955), pp. 239-244. Sung by John Connell, Ballyvourney, Co. Cork. September, 1952.
c. Molly Bawn- Songs Of a Donegal Man (Topic 12TS257 1975); Sung by Packie Byrne (b 1917) of Donegal; learned circa 1958.

This earliest record of this ballad has been mistakenly attributed to Robert Jamieson in 1799, which was the date Jamieson sent a circular letter to his friends. In the letter was a copy of Jamieson's composed ballad, "Lord Kenneth and Fair Ellinoir" based on the ballad story he heard when a child^[1]. Seven years later he published^[2] a fragment of the ballad, our E, entitled, "Peggy Baun" obtained "from his much-valued friend, professor Scott, of King's College, Aberdeen" who had taken it "from the recitation of one of his maidservants." This fragment was acquired around 1803^[3]. Here is the traditional fragment Jameison published in Popular Ballads and Songs, 1806:

Out spak the old father
(His head it was grey)
'O, keep your ain country,
My son,' he did say.

'O, keep your ain country;
Let your trial it come on, &c.

* * * * *

She appeared to her uncle,
And to him said she,
'O uncle, dear uncle,
Jamie Warick is free.

'Ye'll neither hang him nor head him,
Nor do him any wrong;
Be kind to my darling,
Now since I am gone.

'For once as I was walking,
It fell a shower of rain;
I went under the hedging,
The rain for to shun.

'As he was a-hunting,
With his dog and his gun,
By my white apron,
He took me for a swan.'

This fragment is taken from the end of the ballad after a hunter, in this case named Jamie Warick, goes home and tells his father that he accidentally killed his true love, Molly Baun, thinking he was shooting a swan. The father tells his son not to flee but to stay in his "ain country" and face trial. Molly's ghost appears to her uncle, tells him "Jamie Warick will go free," and explains how she was accidentally killed.

Robert Jamieson was born in 1772 and heard the ballad around 1777^[4] when he was a child. The importance of his memory of the ballad is that it establishes an early traditional date of circa 1777. The fragment above, being acquired from a maidservant around 1803, is also important since it was the first extant traditional version published (1806). The 1799 date only pertains to Jamieson's original composition. At least four print versions were published before 1800:

F. "Polly Wand, together with the Beggar girl, and Tom Starboard," Isaiah Thomas Broadside Ballads Project, BIB ID: 284426. Boston, MA; c. 1810^[9].

M. "Polly von Luther and Jamie Randall" J. Andrews, Printer, 38 Chatham St., NY; c. 1857^[10].

Nb. An edited version^[11] was published in The Universal Irish Song Book: A Complete Collection of the Songs; Patrick John Kennedy 1898 (book finished in 1894), New York. The same version was published in the UK in 1864 book, Street Ballads, Popular Poetry and Household Songs of Ireland.

In addition to the four printings in the UK before 1800 several more followed:

D. Molly Whan, a broadside dated c.1802, was printed and sold by J. Pitts 14 Great St. Andrew street, 7 Dials, London.

Cb. Molly Brown [sic] dated c.1804, appeared in "The Morning's Golden Dawn, or Answer to the Dawning of the Day" To Which is Added "Molly Brown'." (Galway: G. Connolly, Ca.). A copy is in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

H. Molly Bawn dated c. 1834 is a broadside by Haly, a printer in Cork, Ireland; Bodleian; Slip 2806 c.18(209) teamed with Miss Patty Puff and her two Sweethearts.

Several early traditional versions besides Jamieson's were collected both in North America and the UK in the early 1800s which show the ballad was likely in oral circulation by the late 1700s:

G. "Mollie Vaughn." c.1814 From Cox, 1925. Communicated by Mr. C. R. Bishop, Green Bank, Pocahontas County, West Virginia in 1917; obtained from Miss Valera Ervine, who got it from her mother, who had it from her mother, who got it from an aunt, who got it from her grandfather, all natives of West Virginia and untravelled.

I. "Molly Baun Lavery" pre1838 sung by Sally Sloane; Australian Irish version; passed down from her grandmother Sarah Alexander, who came out from County Kerry, Ireland in 1838.

J. "Molley Bann Lavery" pre1845 from John Hume's MS taken down in County Down, Ireland from oral tradition; published by Hugh Shields in 1971.

K. "Polly Band" pre1850 From the Lambertson manuscript. Mr. Charles Lambertson remembers hearing his mother sing this song.The informant was born in Seneca County, Ohio, in 1838 of Holland-Dutch parents and moved to Michigan in 1860.

As indicated by the different titles of the print versions and traditional versions, this ballad has appeared under a variety of names from which I've chosen the main title as "Molly Bawn." The "B" is pronounced as a 'V" and the name sounds like, "Vaughn" and is also spelled "Vaughan." According to Andrew Kuntz^[12], "The title 'Molly Bawn' is an Englished corruption of the Gaelic 'Mailí Bhán,' or Fair Mary (Fairhaired Mary, White Haired Mary)." Other popular titles or spellings include "Molly Bann/Baun" and "Polly Vaughn/Vaughan." "The Setting of the Sun" was a title created by Baring-Gould in 1905 and "The Shooting of his Dear" was the master title created by Cecil Sharp about 1903. It was used by Sharp as the title for all his versions collected in Appalachia from 1916-1918.

The total traditional and unique print versions from North America and UK plus one from Australia are over 130 with about 25 that are currently not accessible. Twenty-seven representative versions, A to AA plus derivatives, have been chosen as examples of the ballad. The texts with notes and additional versions are found in the US and Canada page and also British page attached to this page. There are also headnotes written for each page.

* * * *

The question remains, is the ballad based on fact? Did the accidental shooting take place, and if so, who were the people involved, and when and where did it take place? According to Bob Askew^[13]:

"It seems to be based on a true event. Joyce said that it was very popular in mid and southern Ireland in the 19th century. He noted the earliest version in Ireland and felt that it was based on a true event: 'it obviously commemorates a tragedy in real life'. An article in Ulster Folklife (1972) quoted an 1845 manuscript from Kilwarlin, Co Down, which named James Reynolds and Molly Bann Lavery, born in Lisburn, and educated in Lurgan. The surnames were local, the Laverys were Catholics and the Reynolds Protestants. No archival evidence has yet been found to prove this, but it is likely that it could turn up."

Kilwarlin is an ancient place located between the villages of Moira and Hillsborough, and along the banks of the River Lagan in County Down. A number of ballads, both in the UK and North America, mention the name place albeit as a corruption: "But in curs'd Kilwarning (broadside IR)," "But oh, in Kilwarlin (Hume IR)," "flower of Killarney (Cleveland, NY)," "flowers of Killberney (Topper, OH)," and "The girls of Calabra^[14] (Kruse, MO)."

Here are two excerpts giving a brief history of the Kilwarin area from the chapter, "Kilwarlin and Hillsborough, 1866," from Some Extracts from the Records of Old Lisburn and the Manor of Killultagh by James Carson, editor^[15]:

1) Kilwarlin was one of the great territories of the County of Down, some of which have become modern Baronies. Dymmok's Treatise on Ireland, 1600, refers to it as "Mac Roris Cuntry."

2) In 1586, Lord Burghley in his Description of Ulster says:-- "Kilwarlyn, boundinge uppon Kilultagh, is a very fast a woodland, the capten thereof by sirname is a McGenis, called Ever McRorie." The Irish Inquisitions, 1631, No. 29, state that it comprised forty-five townlands, but the Maze was said to contain two and a half.

* * * *

How old is the ballad? Since the earliest record is a print in 1765^[16], the accidental shooting would need to have taken place before c.1763. Steve Gardham who has made transcriptions of two print versions of this ballad at the British Library says, "I'd say the incident/original was probably 1750 or earlier^[17]." In an article The Irish Origins and Variations of the Ballad "Molly Bawn" by Jennifer J. O'Connor, she dates the ballad a full one hundred years earlier than Gardham: "All the evidence, then, suggests a date in the early to mid-seventeenth century for the actual incident, or at least for the original composition of Molly Bawn^[18]." Since Molly was shot with a gun, O'Connor believes the date would not stretch into the sixteenth century.

In the book, Special Report on Surnames in Ireland by Robert E. Matheson^[19], he explains that the Moira District has these prefixes, Baun or Bawn before the last name. The "Baun" means white (Ban) and Molly Baun/Bawn would be "fair-haired Molly." The name Baun/Bawn attached to the last name would be Baun-Lavery or Bawn-Lavery with Baun being the most common. Several people are known by their prefixes, for example, "Dan Baun-Lavery" was known by the name, "Dan Baun." Both the Lowry and the Lavery names descend from O Labhradha, an ancient name from province of Ulster. The Baun-Lavery and Baun-Lowery names are known in other districts.

Since a number of traditional versions^[20] are titled, "Molly Baun/Ban Lavery" or "Molly Bawn Lowry" it seems that Askew's information warrants closer examination. We know from the print versions that the accidental killing took place before c. 1763 but not so far before that date that it would have been forgotten. An informant told Hugh Shields the author of the ballad was an 1800s Irish poet named Pat Reynolds, who was a relative of Jamie Reynolds. The informant said^[21]:

Now he was a friend of Pat's too, you see. . . that done the shooting, that was going with this girl, do you see? Well, he was at a place called the Aqueduct away up here where the ... canal goes over the Lagan. And he was coming back with a gun and he seen this white thing going up and he thought it was a cran. And it was behind the bushes and he shot and he went over, it was his sweetheart Molly Bann, you see, that he had shot. And he came home in a terrible state, you see, told them what he had done: they'd have to get him till America out of the road, because, says he, 'the Banns and the Bann Laverys,' he said, 'my life they'd swear away.'

Regardless of this informants claims, it seems possible that a Jamie Reynolds accidentally shot and killed his love Molly Bann Lavery in the Kilwarlin area of North Ireland. The Kilwarlin version of the ballad published by Shields^[22] validates the sad event as depicted there. It does not, however, conclusively prove the ballad originated in Kilwarlin.

* * * *

The following partial synopsis of the ballad story was given by Jennifer J. O'Connor^[23]:

As the sun is setting, Molly Ban Lavery makes her way home from her uncle's when a sudden shower of rain comes on. A green bush is her only shelter, and huddling beneath it, Molly covers herself with her white apron. Meanwhile her lover, the squire James Reynolds, has been hunting all day with his dog. Upon returning home with his gun in hand, he is attracted to a patch of whiteness showing among the green leaves of a bush. In the falling darkness he supposes this must be the whiteness of a swan's feathers, or the light colour of a fawn's breast. Jimmy raises his gun and shoots; despite the dimness his aim is true. He runs to claim his quarry when to his horror and great grief he finds only his sweetheart lying dead under the bush.

Missing from O'Connor's synopsis is revenant ending which is common in most versions of the ballad^[24]:

James Reynolds takes his gun, returns home and describes the accident to his father, who advises his son not to run but stay and go to trial. At the trial Molly's ghost appears and testifies to her uncle, explaining what happened and assures him that James will go free. Molly is compared to the pretty girls (or sometimes the lawyers/judges) lined up in a row and she shines in the middle of them like a mountain of snow.

In some versions Molly's ghost appears to her uncle before the trial, which means her uncle must represent her at the trial in order to exonerate Jamie Raynolds/Randall. O'Connor suggests that in the presumed absence of her father (she does not seek her father; he's either dead or away) that her uncle is acting as her legal guardian^[25]. It would then be his duty to seek justice for her or in this case, for her lover on her behalf. In a number of versions the roles of his father and her uncle have become corrupted.

* * * *

Some versions have "fawn" instead of "swan." According to Steve Gardham^[25]: I've always put the swan/fawn error down to being a confusion. If someone unfamiliar with the long "s" saw fawn on a ballad sheet they might interpret it as fawn. It has to be said that the mistaking fawn/swan is just as likely either way.

The first extant appearance of "fawn" is in The Youths Grievance; or, the Downfall of MOLLY BAWN from My Friend and Pitcher. Lillenhall Library, Belfast, Pamphlet Book 1031, item [9], 1797.

In yonder green bower my love she sat down,
I shot at my darling, which makes me bemoan;
Her apron being about her, I took her for a fawn
But to my great grief 'twas my Molly Bawn.

The first extant appearance of "fawn" in the US is in the 1857 broadside, "Molly Von Luther"^[26]:

"My apron being around me, he took me for a fawn,
But oh, and alas! it was I, Polly Von."

Only a small number of traditional versions have "fawn" which does indicate the possibility that all the fawn versions have resulted from early print versions where the "s" is written as an "f."

* * * *

The ballad, which Gardham says is "undoubtedly a northern Irish ballad^[27]," is associated with the ancient Irish melody, "Lough Sheeling" (named after the lake, Lough Sheelin) which was used by Edward Bunting (1773-1843) the Irish collector at least three times in his manuscripts as it was the first melody given to student harpists^[28]. Patrick Joyce^[29] noted its popularity in other areas of Ireland and confirmed it was based on a real event: "In the last century this song was very popular in the midland and southern counties. I once heard it sung in fine style in the streets of Dublin by a poor woman with a child on her arm. Like several other ballads in this book, it obviously commemorates a tragedy in real life." Later he confirms the standard melody: "The air is the same as 'Lough Sheeling' of Moore's song, 'Come, rest on this bosom!' but a different version."

While the ballad was popular in Ireland, it was discovered in different parts of England in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s controversial versions where Molly takes the "form of a swan" were collected in Dorset and Somerset^[29]. The most important of the "form of a swan" versions was collected by Cecil Sharp from Lucy White in 1903^[30] and published in 1905 and in the JFSS in 1906. The controversial last stanza appears:

5 In six weeks' time when the 'Sizes came on
Young Polly appeared in the form of a swan,
Crying: Jimmy, young Jimmy, young Jimmy is clear,
He never shall be hang-ed for the shooting of his dear. [Lucy White, 1903]

This stanza was corroborated five years later by two versions collected from J. Handsford and also Henry Way in the Dorset area. Additionally a version was published by Sabine Baring-Gould in 1905 called "The Setting of the Sun" which had this stanza^[31]:

3. In the night the fair maid as a white swan appears,
She says, O my true love, quick dry up your tears,
I freely forgive you, I have Paradise won,
I was shot by my love at the setting of the sun. [collected from J. Lukin but attributed to Sam Fone, 1883]

After looking at the original MS, it's evident that Baring-Gould fabricated the "as a white swan appears" in J. Lukin's MS from "all shining appears" and added it to Sam Fone's version. The "form of a swan" as evidenced by the White version along with Baring-Gould's version was written about in great detail by Anne Gilchrist in 1922^[32] and later Phillips Barry in 1935^[33]. Sharp even commented that "the ballad is the survival of a genuine piece of Celtic or, still more probably, of Norse imagination.^[34]"

The three authentic versions where Molly's ghost appears in the "form of a swan" show that it is likely an isolated (Dorset/Somerset) modern interpretation of the ballad. These versions present the possibility that 1) Molly changed into a swan when it got dark and Jimmy shot her for a swan because she changed her form and, 2) that when Molly appears among the girls in a row like a "fountain/mountain of snow" she is in the form of a swan.

Flight of Fancy

Sharp and more enthusiastically Baring-Gould in his 1905 "Songs of the West" (edited by Sharp) promoted the idea of Molly being a swan-maiden- after all Sharp had collected White's 1903 version with the line, "Young Polly appeared in the form of a swan." Baring-Gould who calls Molly "the apparition of the girl" implying that she is a swan-maiden, changed his collected text so that "In the night the fair maid as a white swan appears^[35]." In 1922 Lucy Broadwood expanded on the Sharp's "genuine piece of Celtic or Norse imagination: "But there seems little doubt that this ballad is a degraded relic of something very old, and that fair (lit. white) Molly can trace her descent from either swan-maiden or enchanted white doe.^[36] Broadwood continued with a number of analogues which I'm including in full:

In a Hessian tale cited by Mr. Baring-Gould a forester is about to shoot a fair swan floating on a lonely lake when it warns him to desist or it will cost him his life, and reveals itself as a bewitched maiden. (The 'swiffling' described in Mr. Sharp's earliest noted version suggests that Polly swan was either swimming or bathing in a pool in the dusk when shot, before her white apron was offered as an explanation of the blunder.) Another instance of the soul in swan- form is found in the Celtic legend of "The Fate of the Children of Lir," Lir's three daughters being transformed into swans by a cruel stepmother. For further light on such stories see the chapters on Swan-maidens in E. S. Hartland's The Science of Fairy Tales.

The old Scandinavian ballads contain many examples of similar enchantments, generally the work of a wicked step-mother, as in "The Maid as a Hind and a Hawk" (see Prior's Ancient Danish Ballads, No. CXIII) Dr. Prior remarks that the transforming of persons to quadrupeds to gratify a spite against them is common to the tales of Greece and Rome, Arabia and Scandinavia. In the above Danish ballad the step-mother shapes the girl to a little white hind and banishes her to the greenwood, turning the maiden's seven little maids to wolves, with command to tear her flesh--but they refuse to do so. Her lover, sorrowing for his lost lady, rides a-hunting to distract his mind, and pursues the white hind, who to escape him changes to a hawk. At last, by the lure of flesh cut from his own breast, Sir Orm accomplishes her restoration to human form and his arms.

In the old French ballad " La Chasse" otherwise "La Blanche Biche,"translated by Andrew Lang as "The Milk-white Doe," the maiden under enchantment is a woman by daylight, but at midnight of every ninth day changes into a milk-white doe. In this guise she is hunted in the forest by her brother and other men, the brother being the fiercest pursuer. In the act of slaying her the spell is broken, the maid resumes her human form, dead, and the tragic mistake is discovered:

Then out and spake the forester,
As he came from the wood,
"Nor never saw I maids' gold hair
Among the wild deer's blood.

"And I have hunted the wild deer
In east lands and in west,
And never saw I white doe yet
That had a maiden's breast."

The dreadful discovery having been made, the brother accuses himself of his sister's death, and after giving directions for her fair burial flees to the greenwood, to dwell an outlaw for seven years.

The stress laid upon "the setting of the sun" in some versions of the "Shooting of his Dear" suggests that the transformation took place at the hour of sunset, in the original form of the ballad--which seems to be of Celtic origin (see Miss Broadwood's reference to a version in Gaelic). It will be remembered that according to Gaelic tradition, Ossian was the son of an enchanted doe, and his mysterious counsel to his mother:

Mas tu mo mhathair's gur fiadh thu
Sirich mu'n oirich a' ghrian ort.
(Mother mine, if deer thou be,
Arise ere sun arise on thee)

is supposed to have reference to the breaking of her enchantment. Here sunrise would appear to be the critical moment.^[37]
The white hind as a fairy love is also found in Celtic tales-one of which, related as a fact, concerns an ancestor of the family who now call themselves Whyte. These Whytes are descendants of a certain fair- (literally white) haired man who belonged to a branch of the MacLeods of Raasay and who was a forester. This forester was in 1644 in the army of the Earl of Argyll, and had a fairy sweetheart in the shape of a white hind which followed the troops wherever they went. Argyll having been mocked at by his brother officers on account of this phenomenon, commanded his men to fire at the hind-which they did without effect. It was observed that the forester did not fire with the rest, and Argyll thereupon commanded him to shoot at the hind. The forester obeyed, but warned Argyll that it would be his last shot.

Hardly had he fired when he fell dead. The fairy hind gave a scream, and vanishing up the mountain like a cloud of mist^[38], was never seen again. The milk-white hind as a woman under enchantment is also suggested in the old ballad of "Leesome Brand" (Buchan's Ballads of the North, Vol. i, p. 40)

"Ye'll take your arrow and your bow,
And ye will hunt the deer and roe;
Be sure ye touch not the white hynde,
For she is o' the woman kind."

It seems just possible that in recent times there has been some confusion amongst folk singers between 'deer' and 'dear.' Also that the commonplace of comparison "as white as a swan" applied to a fair maid may have helped to recommend the swan rather than the deer form to the singer's imagination. But enough has, I think, been cited to show that Molly Bawn--whether appearing as swan or fawn- is no kinless waif of vulgar balladry. Her ultimate ancestry may be left to folklorists to trace, this annotator not being competent to discuss her long descent from 'the theriomorphic soul.'

Around a dozen years later Phillips Barry published two fragments of Molly Bawn and added these comments^[39]:

". . . the story of' Molly Bawn is that of Piocris and Aura, or, as it is better known, of Cephalus and Procris. Not Ovid's version, however, but a much earlier type of the myth (C. Robert, Die Griechische Heldeisage, I, PP. 162, ff.): is most similar to the plot of our ballad. In this version, the lovers are hunting in the woods, unknown to each other. Procris beats the bushes, Cephalus hearing the noise, casts his spear and kills her. In 1910, we called attention to the importance of the swan in the story (JAFL, XXII p. 357): a dozen years later, Miss A. G. Gilchrist (JFSS., VII, 17-21), quite correctly appraised the antiquity of the theme and the relation of the swan (or 'hind') to the belief in the theriomorphic soul. As parallels, she cited certain Scandinavian ballads and the French La Biche Blanche. Actually, the trait of the theriomorphic soul is itself part-and-parcel of the tradition of the myth of Cephalus and Procris, though the evidence is not literary but iconographic. A scene on a red-figured vase in the British Museum (G. Weicker, Der Seelenvogel in der alten Litteratur und Kunst, p. 166), depicts the death of Procris. Cephalus, his dog at his side, looks on to Procris, mortally wounded, sinks to the ground. At the same moment, a large bird, with the head and features of Procris, rises into the air. The vase, but doubtless not the scene, is unique: in any case, it has preserved a conception of the myth which ls in keeping with the theriomorphic soul trait as we have it in Molly Bawn. It is still a belief in remote localities of Ireland, that ducks and other birds flying at night are souls in bird-form (Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs, II, 103).

The substitution of the fawn for the swan as we have it in Mrs. Morse's text, as well as in the comic version Polly von Luther and Jamie Randall (Andrews, New York, before 1860), is not due to mere zerzingen. The explanation which we offer here is tentative and subject to revision.

We have already shown that the Siren-Lamia, identified with Lilith (Isa, XXXIV, 14) is the prototype of Morgain la vee of medieval synthetic mythology (FSSNE, Bulletin 7, p. 13; 8, pp 11-12). Hebrew Lilith is written in Syriac, Leliota for which the Peschita has in Isa XXXIV 14, Aiyato, explained by the lexicographer Bar 'Ali as demon quae sub forma mulieris fletis se ntonstrat. Now Syriac aliyota is easily misread as ayolata - "doe, hind." With this may be connected the formula ayyeleth ha-sucher, "hind of the dawn"- probably the name of a traditional air- in the Hebrew introduction to Psalm XXII, 1, which has been referred to Rabbinical traditions of a "hind hunted in the morning. In Celtic mythology, as Miss Gilchrist has pointed out (JFSS, VII, 20), Ossian's mother in her form of a doe, was under a geas or tabu, never to be seen at dawn, while in the Guigemar of Marie de France, the supernatural doe is apparently a hypostasis of Morgain.

A Gaelic text of a ballad apparently identical with Molly Bawn was heard in the West Highlands by the late Miss Lucy E. Broadwood (JFSS, VII, 17): moreover, a set of the air to Molly Bawn, or The Shooting of his Dear (Joyce, Old Irish Folk-Music and Songs, p. 220), bearing the Irish title Malli Ban, was printed by Edward Bunting in 1809. We conclude that our ballad is a translation by some sorry rhymester, from a Gaelic original. Miss Gilchrist aptly compares the lines in Buchan's Leesome Brand (Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 39):

"Be sure ye touch not the white hynde,
For she is o the woman kind."

Herein is a clear allusion to the super-natural hind, the fay in animal form. Child, who suspected some connection between Leesome Brand and The Bonny Hind (No. 50), a ballad of brother-sister fixation, never found the connecting link in the French La Biche Blanche, in which the brother hunts his own sister in hind-form. To the same group belongs The West Country Damosel's Complaint. (Child, 292).

Malcolm Douglas posted this in the Mudcat Forum^[40]: A. L. Lloyd has a good bit to say about it in Folksong in England; some of his ideas may be a little fanciful (to say the least), but they are still interesting. Here is a (shortened) version:

"[A song] despised by Jamieson (who thought it 'one of the very lowest descriptions of vulgar modern English ballads') and rejected by Child but still much loved by singers in Ireland and the eastern counties of England. . .[synopsis omitted]. It seems clear enough that the story is a come-down relic of the same myth that, long before Ovid's time, became attached to the figures of Cephalus and Procris. Procris, an enthusiastic huntress, had a dog that never failed to catch its quarry and a dart that never missed its mark (she obtained them both from Minos in return for bed-favours). She gave both dog and dart to her husband Cephalus. He went out hunting in the dusk, and Procris, suspecting that he was visiting a mistress, put on a camouflage robe and stole out after him. As she hid in a thicket, the dog detected her, and Cephalus, mistaking her for a deer, cast his unerring dart and killed her. He was banished for her murder and haunted by her ghost.

Several commentators. . .have identified the girl under the apron as a descendant either of a swan maiden or an enchanted doe...in any case the magical maiden who is a woman by day and a beast by night, and fatally hunted by her brother as like as not, is as familiar a figure in folklore as the swans and other birds flying by night, who are thought to be souls in bird form. So the modern-seeming ballad of Molly-Polly Bawn-Vaughan, that Jamieson thought so paltry, in fact reaches far back beyond the time of classical mythology. The song that the experienced Irish folk song collector, Patrick Joyce, thought 'obviously commemorates a tragedy in real life' turns out to be connected with the fantasies of primitive hunting societies. . . ."

Gilchrist, Barry and Lloyd have all elaborated on the "flight of fancy" - the swan or fawn that changes to the female form. Lloyd is obviously treading the ground paved by Gilchrist and Barry. In Seamus Ennis version appear these notes^[41]:

In the Hebridean version, it is the cruel mother who advises her son to shoot a swan, even though she knows that the swan is his true love.

Not pointed out by the previous commentators is the Irish story "Aislinge Oengusso," known also as "the vision of Aonghus (also spelled Aengus)." In this story Aonghus falls in love with a swan-maiden and must become a swan himself if he is to be united with her.

With all the analogues, the flight of fancy, the pragmatic Malcolm Douglas^[42] concluded:

Commentators have frequently waxed lyrical on the subject of swan maidens and magical transformation, but there's no compelling reason to think that is anything more than romantic wishful thinking. Hunters shoot people all the time under the impression that they are game.

The original broadsides and early versions do not mention Molly changing to the "shape of a swan or a fawn." The ballad does end with Molly's ghostly visitation in order to save her true love, who accidentally shot her because with her apron pulled over her-- she looked like a swan.

* * * *

"Room of a swan"

Several Norfolk versions have "room of a swan" a usage of "room" that is an old usage:

For young Jimmy was a-fowling, was a-fowling alone.
When he shot his own true love in the room of a swan^[43]. (Gales; Cox)

In Make Merry in Step and Song: A Seasonal Treasury of Music, Mummer's Plays by Bronwen Forbes (2009), "room" has been changed to "ruse:"

1. O come all you young fellows that carry a gun,
I'll have you get home by the light of the sun,
For Jimmy was a fowler and a-fowling alone
When he shot his own true love in the ruse of a swan.

In the recording English Folk Songs by Audrey Coppard FW06917 / FW 6917 / FP 917 -1956 she sings a "Norfolk" version based on the Gales/Cox versions. The text was provided and edited by A. L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl who helped her with several of the songs. This is probably one of them. The "room" in the ending has been changed to "ru'."

1. Come all ye young fellows who carry a gun,
I'll have you come home by the light of the sun;
For young Jimmy was a fowler who went a-fowling alone
And he shot his own true love in the ru' of a swan.

By far the most common usage, "room of a swan" is commonly found in the last line of the first stanza.

* * * *

Mountain/Fountain of snow

Full versions usually have the stanza after Jimmy's acquittal where "all the girls are lined up in a row" and "Molly stands/shines among them like a mountain/fountain of snow." Some are explicit for the reason Molly is "shining:"

Come, all you fair people, and stand in a row,
Molly's ghost will stand before you like a mountain of snow^[44].

There are three views about the "mountain/fountain of snow:" 1. That the mountain of snow is Molly's ghost (as above) 2. That Molly's spirit has returned in the form of a swan and that the "mountain of snow" represents the swan returning, or 3. that Molly's great beauty makes her stand out among the other girls like "a mountain of snow^[45]." Since Molly's ghost has already appeared, it seem more likely that it is Molly in ghostly form who appears like "a mountain of snow."

* * * *

The ballad "Molly Bawn" was created to tell the story of a hunting accident that was a real event. It has yet to be conclusively proven whether the actual people are Molly Bawn Lovery and Jamie Reynolds and the place is Kilwarlin in Northern Ireland.

R. Matteson 2016]

Footnotes:

1. "A lover killing his mistress, a grey-headed old father, and a ghost, seemed very fine things to a child of five or six years old; and I remembered the story long after I had forgot the terms in which it was conveyed." Jamieson, Popular Ballads and Songs, 1806.
2. Robert Jamieson, Popular Ballads and Songs, from Tradition, Manuscripts, and Scarce Editions; with Translations of Similar Pieces from the Ancient Danish Language, and a Few Originals by the Editor. 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 1806), I: 193-199.
3. Kittredge; 1917 JAF: In 1803 he mentioned the ditty as "the tragic ballad of 'Peggie Baun'" in his list of desiderata in the "Scots Magazine," 65: 700. Robert Eden Scott (1769-1811), Professor of Moral Philosophy at King's College Aberdeen from 1800, better known in ballad history as the nephew of Anna Gordon and, in or before 1783, the scribe of the first two manuscripts of her ballads. He lent the original of "Jamieson's Brown MS" to Robert Jamieson in 1799.
4. According to Robert Jamieson in Popular Ballads and Songs: "A lover killing his mistress, a grey-headed old father, and a ghost, seemed very fine things to a child of five or six years old; and I remembered the story long after I had forgot the terms in which it was conveyed."
5. The print date of 1765 was supplied from Google Books which have two records of the Garland dated 1765. Gardham's date is c. 1780.
6. There is a record of two printings of Scottish chapbooks, 1793 (google) and 1799 (Gardham-British Library)- both have different ballads and songs. It's likely since Mally Bann is the same title tis the same version. I have not seen the text of the 1793 printing.
7. According to Gardham: Belfast garland 1797 in Irish Traditional Music Archive: 'The Youth's Grievance, or the Downfall of Molly Bawn'. 10sts. Damon and Phillis's Garland. BL 11621. c. 5.
8. The two Scottish Garlands are different printings with a different combination of ballads and songs of what is almost certainly the same ballad, Mally Bann, Ba.
9. According to Cox, "An American broadside (F, "Polly Wand") is among the ballads purchased "from a Ballad Printer and Seller in Boston" by Isaiah Thomas in 1813 (II, 122, American Antiquarian Society." The Society dates the ballad c. 1810.
10. According to Barry (1935, BFSSNE) this is a parody of the ballad- if it is it's not an obvious one.
11. The music in Street Ballads, Popular Poetry and Household Songs of Ireland was "collected and arranged by Duncathail" (suggested by Dunkettle) a pseudonym for Ralph Varian of Cork, author of poems, and of a "Life of John and Henry Sheares," and editor of "The Harp of Erin," and "Popular Poetry of Ireland."
12. From: A Fiddler's Companion by Andrew Kuntz, online.
13. Bob Askew's statement was posted in The Mudcat Discussion Forum by Richard Mellish in May 2016.
14. This is perhaps derived from "Colrain" (see Mally Bann, 1793), a different location in Ireland.
15. Some Extracts from the Records of Old Lisburn and the Manor of Killultagh by James Carson, editor was regular publication. This extract may be viewed online.
16. A, "A Song, call'd Molly Bawn" was published in The Bottle and Frien'ds Garland which according to Google Books was printed 1765.
17. Posted in The Mudcat Discussion Forum by Gardham in May 2016.
18. The Irish Origins and Variations of the Ballad "Molly Bawn" by Jennifer J. O'Connor.
19. Special Report on Surnames in Ireland: Together with Varieties and Synonyms of Surnames and Christian Names, Ireland (1901) by Robert E. Matheson; reprinted 1992.
20. See two versions titled Molly Bawn Lowery and one titled Molly Bann Lavery and another Molly Baun Lavery in this collection.
21. The Irish Origins and Variations of the Ballad "Molly Bawn" reprinted from Shields- see next footnote.
22. "Some Songs and Ballads in Use in the Province of Ulster. . . 1845" by Hugh Shields (Ulster Folklife, Vol. 17, 1971).
23. The Irish Origins and Variations of the Ballad "Molly Bawn" by Jennifer J. O'Connor.
24. although I have not calculated an exact percentage, Molly's ghost returns in over 80% of the full versions.
25. Posted in The Mudcat Discussion Forum by Gardham in May 2016.
26. "Polly von Luther and Jamie Randall" J. Andrews, Printer, 38 Chatham St., NY; c. 1857.
27. Posted in The Mudcat Discussion Forum by Gardham
28. According to A Fiddler's Companion by Andrew Kuntz, online.
28. Old Irish folk music and songs: a collection of 842 Irish airs and songs, hitherto unpublished by Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland by Patrick Weston Joyce (1827-1914); published 1909.
29. Somerset- Lucy White, in 1903; Dorset- J. Handsford and also Henry Way in 1906.
30. "Shooting of his Dear." Folk Songs from Somerset by Cecil James Sharp, Charles Latimer Marson; 1905. Reprinted 1906 JFSS. Tune and words from Mrs. Lucy White of Hambridge, 1903.
31. "At the Setting of the Sun" Baring-Gould's version was published in Songs of the West, 1905- attributed to Sam Fone of Mary Tavy in Devon, July 12, 1893.
32. Songs Collected in Norfolk by E. J. Moeran, A. G. Gilchrist, Frank Kidson, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lucy E. Broadwood; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 26 (Dec., 1922).
33. BFSSNE, Vol. 10, 1935.
34. Folk Songs from Somerset by Cecil James Sharp, Charles Latimer Marson; 1905. Reprinted 1906 JFSS.
35. Songs of the West, 1905, second edition.
36. Songs Collected in Norfolk by E. J. Moeran, A. G. Gilchrist, Frank Kidson, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lucy E. Broadwood; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 26 (Dec., 1922).
37. Broadwood's footnote: 1. The point is rather obscure. Dr. G. Henderson in his Survivals in Belief among Ike Celts says (p. 70) that "Ossian's advice to his mother, in her animal-form, that she should get up before sunrise, implies that otherwise she was liable to be shot by hunters; to be up ere sunrise was a sort of taboo comparable to some of the restrictions of the Early Irish kings in the Book of Rights."
38. Broadwood's footnote: 2. The 'fountain of snow' which takes the place of the swan-apparition in court in one of the Appalachian versions of "The Shooting of his Dear" is more likely to be a late corruption of "the form of a swan," or possibly a "fawn white as snow" than any wraith of snow or white mist.-A. G. G.
39. BFSSNE, Vol. 10, 1935.
40. Posted in The Mudcat Discussion Forum
41. Notes from "Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music: Ireland" Columbia AKL 4941 (1955)
42. Posted in The Mudcat Discussion Forum (February 2007).
43. Walter Gales, Norfolk, 1921; Songs Collected in Norfolk by E. J. Moeran, A. G. Gilchrist, Frank Kidson, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lucy E. Broadwood; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 26 (Dec., 1922).
44. Molly Bond, sung by Mrs. Georgia Peak of Jenks. Ballads and Folk Songs of the Southwest, 1964 by the Moores.
45. Steve Gardham, posted The Mudcat Discussion Forum.

*Special thanks to Steve Gardham and Jonathan Lighter as well as other contributors on the Mudcat Forum from whence sections of this ballad study came.
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