58
The Ghost's Bride
Strictly speaking, this ballad has not been found elsewhere. 'A
Gentleman of Exeter,' reported from tradition in Vermont (NGMS
5-7), Tennessee (FSSH 147-9), and North Carolina (SharpK 11
162-3), tells a similar story but is quite different in temper. It is
apparently derived from a chapbook text discovered by Barry in
the Harvard library and printed by Henry in FSSH 149-52. It
also bears some relation to a Manx ballad of which a partial trans-
lation is given in SharpK 11 390-1. In all of these the story is
connected with the town of Exeter, and there is a fairly elaborate
account of the relations between the girl and her lover — he upbraids
her orally and by letter, she answers him saucily, and he goes off
and drowns himself. In 'The Ghost's Bride' the story is simplified
and much improved. At the opening it appears that the lover has
been dead, or at least not heard from, for a year; there is no meet-
ing between him and the girl, no mockery on her part ; at the end
we find that the lover was killed by his brother and supplanter.
Moreover, the story runs steadily — and well-languaged — to its tragic
conclusion. The texts of 'A Gentleman of Exeter' are badly cor-
rupted in places. Barry thought highly enough of it to say that
Child would have included it in a supplementary volume if he had
lived. Had he known 'The Ghost's Bride' he would have had
much stronger ground for such a judgment.^
'Ghost's Bride.' Secured by Mrs. Sutton — date not given, but about
1920 — from a Mrs. Graybeal, under conditions described as follows:
"One cold gloomy evening in early winter I spent the night with
Mrs. Graybeal. After supper we sat around the fire and I told the
children some fairy stories.
" 'Mammy knows a ghost tale,' the little girl told me proudly. 'Hit's
a song but hit's the scariest tune you ever heard.'
"I urged Mrs. Graybeal to sing it. She did so, and I discovered the
first ballad of the supernatural I ever heard in North Carolina. The
tune, which is much like Barbary Allen, is weird and plaintive. The
story is very old. She said her great-aunt used to sing it.
" 'My aunt knowed more'n a hundred song ballets,' she told me.
'She sung tribble in church but she sung jes' tunes for us a lot. She
used to make col' flesh all over me with her ol' tales. This one is all
I learnt. My aunt was a educated woman too. She wrote this ballet
fur me.' And in the Bible that lay on the table near was a sheet of
foolscap upon which this song was copied. The writing was delicate and
^'Susannah Clargy' (SharpK 11 261, from Virginia) has a similar
story but is far from being the same ballad. 'The Oxford Man,' re-
ported by Davis among "Ghost Ballads" found in Virginia (FSV 69),
is probably a form of 'A Gentleman of Exeter.' I have not seen the
text.
OLDER BALLADS MOSTLY BRITISH 217
regular, many flourishes decorated it and a picture of a man on horse-
back, crudely drawn but with an unusual vigor and a fine sense of
dramatic fitness, decorated the top of the slieet. 'Martha Ann Line-
back' was the name signed at the foot. The date was March 12, 1888.
Mrs. Graybeal said her great-aunt was then over seventy."
Stanzas i and 6 seem to be spoken not by actors in the story but
chorus-like, by the narrator, and are therefore not put in quotation
marks.
1 Oh Mary dear, lay by your grief
And do not sorrow so ;
Your lover dear he met his death
More than a year ago.
2 His brother John to court he canie;
He kneeled upon his knee :
'I've loved you true for many a year ;
Oh, won't you marry me?'
3 Her gown of black she laid aside,
Put on a gown of green ;
She promised for to be his bride.
She outshone the country's queen,
4 The wedding day came clear and bright,
And to the church they went.
The young folks danced, the children laughed.
All was on pleasure bent.
5 He mounted her on a milk-white steed,
Himself on a prancin' roan.
Away they rode across the fields
Toward his brother's home.
6 Your brother's bride, your brother's home.
Your brother's prancin' horse.
You stole them all, John Gordon bold ;
You'll surely feel remorse.
7 As she rode up between the trees,
A-goin' to his home,
The wind blew cold and the wind blew hard ;
She thought she heard a groan.
8 'What is that sound, O husband dear?
It moans like a heart dismayed.'
'It is the wind,' John Gordon said,
'So do not be afraid.'
9 That night she lay beside him there
Upon a feather bed.
The wind blew cold and the wind blew hard.
She saw his hand was red.
2l8 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
10 The wind blew cold and the wind blew hard,
It made a fearsome sound.
She heard the hoof of a prancin' steed
Galloping o'er the ground.
1 1 She heard the sound of the dead man's voice :
'My brother stole my bride,
He stole my house and he stole my land.
He stole my red blood's tide.
12 'My bones lie bleaching on the rocks
At the foot of a dark, dark dale.
He pushed me off the tall rock clifif
All in the moonlight pale.'
13 The wind blew cold and the wind blew hard.
'I'm comin' fur my own.
My bride I'll take, you keep the rest,'
She heard the dead man moan.
14 She saw him stand beside her bed
All in the moon's pale light.
'Oh, come with me, my promised bride ;
My love you shall not slight.'
1 5 The morning came ; John Gordon woke,
Woke up to find her gone.
He searched the house, he searched the grounds ;
For days the search went on.
16 Her bones they found in the dark, dark dale
Beside those of her lover.
'She was his bride,' the searchers said;
'She never loved his brother.'
"Mrs. Graybeal assured me," Mrs. Sutton writes, "that if John Gor-
don had only buried his brother the ghost would never have come.
'Humans can't be peaceful tel they're buried,' Aunt Marthy Ann
said. . . . 'Their souls stays around their bodies tel they's kivered
with earth, then it goes home.' "