92 A. The Lowlands of Holland (Bronson Appendix)
[This ballad has been recognized as a variant of Bonny Bee Hom and Bronson has given texts and music under the designation 92A. It was printed in Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (volume ii, p. 2, ed. 1776) and appears also in Garlands, printed about the same time, under the titles "The Sorrowful Lover's Regrate" and "The Maid's Lamentation for the Loss of her True Love." Here's the text from Ashton's Real Sailor Songs, No. 59:
THE MAID'S LAMENTATION FOR THE LOSS Of HER TRUE LOVE.
I saw my Love a sailing, down by a River side,
It is enough for to pierce a fair Maid's Heart,
That had been a Bride, brave Boys, most charming to behold,
May the Heavens above preserve and keep all Sailors bold.
I built my Love a very fine Ship, a Ship of noble Fame,
With twenty-five Mariners to box about the Main;
When the Wind blows, Boys, and Seas begin to spout,
My true Love, and his gallant Ship, was sadly tost about.
Our Anchor and our Cables we overboard did throw,
Our Main-mast and our Rigging, overboard did blow,
By the Tempest of bad Weather, and the Raging of the Sea,
I never had but one true Love, and him they took from me.
Says the Mother to the Daughter, what makes you lament?
Is there never a Lad in this Town that can give you Content,
No, there's never a Lad in the Town ever shall suffer for me,
Since the Seas and the Winds has parted my Love and me.
There shall no Scarf go on my Head, no Comb into my Hair,
No Fire burn, no Candle light to shew my Beauty fair,
For never will I married be, until the Day I die,
Since the Seas and the Winds has parted my Love and me.
The first extant version in North America is "The Young Woman's Lamentation" from Thomas Fanning's notebook dated 1780. Versions have been collected in Maine (Eckstorm, 1914; Grover 1941), in Virginia (Sharp, 1918), in Missouri/Arkansas (Randolph, 1920, A and B) in Kentucky (Combs, 1925) and more recently Newfoundland (MacEdward Leach- 1951) Tennessee (Burton/Manning) and West Virginia (Bush II). Several versions have been recorded, including Grover- 1941 and Graham- 1938.
R. Matteson 2015]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Commentary (Bonny Bee Hom)
2. Bronson's Narrative
3. My Brief
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: The Lowlands of Holland
A. Roud Number 484: The Lowlands of Holland (130 Listings)
2. Sheet Music: The Lowlands of Holland (Bronson's texts and some music examples)
3. US & Canadian Versions
4. English and Other Versions
Child's Commentary (From: Bonny Bee Hom)
The like vows are adopted into a song called 'The Lowlands of Holland,' found in Herd's Manuscripts, I, 97, and inserted in his Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 2; a fragment, but all that concerns us. [footnote- see below]
1 'My love has built a bony ship, and set her on the sea,
With seven score good mariners to bear her company;
There 's three score is sunk, and three score dead at sea,
And the Lowlands of Holland has twin'd my love and me.
2 'My love he built another ship, and set her on the main,
And nane but twenty mariners for to bring her hame;
But the weary wind began to rise, and the sea began to rout,
My love then and his bonny ship turnd withershins about.
3 'There shall neither coif come on my head nor comb come in my hair;
There shall neither coal nor candle-light shine in my bower mair;
Nor will I love another one until the day I die,
For I never lovd a love but one, and he 's drowned in the sea.'
4 'O had your tongue, my daughter dear, be still and be content;
There are mair lads in Galloway, ye neen nae sair lament:'
' O there is none in Gallow, there 's none at a' for me,
For I never lovd a love but one, and he 's drowned in the sea.'
Footnote: There are six double stanzas in Johnson's Museum, p. 118, to which Steuhouse, IV, 115, adds a concluding one, the fourth of Herd's. "This ballad," Stenhouse was informed, "was composed about the beginning of the last century by a young widow in Galloway, whose husband was drowned on a voyage to Holland." His authority was probably traditional, and all the information except the date, and, to be accurate, the widowhood, is found in the song itself. Motherwell, Minstrelsy, Introduction, p. lxxii, note 37, observes that neither Herd's nor Johnson's copy is so full "as one which may occasionally be met with in stall editions published about sixty years ago:" 1827. Logan, who prints two vulgar versions, or rather perversions, in which a bridegroom is pressed into the king's sea-service on the night of his marriage, Pedlar's Pack, p. 22, says: " A more lengthened version of the same ballad in the Scotch dialect will be found in Book First of A Selection of Scots Songs, Harmonised... By Peter Urbani, Professor of Music, Edinburgh, circa 1794." Christie, I, 236, says that 'The Lowlands of Holland' was sung in his father's family, in Aberdeenshire, as far back as the middle of the last century. Herd's copy is translated by Talvj, Charakteristik, p. 594.
Additions and Corrections
P. 317. 'The Lowlands of Holland.' In 'The Sorrowful Lover's Regrate, or, The Low-Lands of Holland,' British Museum 1346. m. 7(40), dated May the 5th, 1776, a threnody in eleven double stanzas. 1, 2 of the copy in Johnson's Museum are 1,2; Johnson, 3 = 7, 4 = 4, 5 = 6, 6 = 3, and the stanza added by Stenhouse is 9 (with verbal divergences). 'The Maid's Lamentation for the loss of her true love,' Museum 11621. c. 3(39), "Newcastle, 1768?," the fifth piece in The Complaining Lover's Garland, has five stanzas: 1 corresponding to 2 of Johnson, 2 to 5, 5 to 6, 3 to 5 of the Regrate, and 4 to 9, with considerable differences. 'The Seaman's Sorrowful Bride,' Roxburghe, IV, 73, Ebsworth, VI, 444, begins with two stanzas which resemble Johnson, 2, 1. This last was printed for J. Deacon, in Guilt-spur-street, and the date, according to Chappell, would be 1684-95.
92 Appendix: Bronson's Narrative- The Lowlands of Holland
The lyric lament with which "Bonny Bee Hom" opens is a commonplace of popular poetry. Lacking a stable narrative core, it passes from ballad to ballad like the similarly floating stanzas about shoeing the foot and gloving the hand. (Cf. No.76.) Properly, however, it occurs after, not before the tragedy; and we may regard the reverse order here as less primitive. The change, however, entails further modification in order to resuscitate the narrative: hence the device of overhearing, which makes possible a new farewell with the giving of magic gifts. (We recall that a new scene was made possible when Polonius, having said goodbye to Laertes, found that "occasion smile [d] upon a second leave.") The gifts themselves belong to the days of high and chivalric romance, and promise a tale of adventure. But the hope is disappointed: the perils of the voyage are omitted; even the purpose of it, to which the hero was deeply sworn, is left untold; nor do we learn what befell in the twelve-month that followed in Bee Hom. It could not very well have been a martial enterprise, for the hero bequeathed his riches there, as in peace, to the very young, the old, and the blind. Buchan's version, to be sure, supplies some of the gaps, but by the merest rationalization. There is thus no story in the ballad except the minimum of situation latent in the two features mentioned. Dim recollections of other ballads, feebly connected in the wrong order, would produce this result with the aid of a very little cheap mortar; and it can scarcely be felt that we have here the clear evidence of an old and independent line. The last stanza of Mrs. Brown's text, with its broadside piety, is certainly of newest vintage. I do not remember that any one has yet thought it worth while to suggest that Bee Hom (in Buchan, Bahome) might be a corruption of Bahama.
It is on the whole a relief to turn to the "modern" ballad of the impressed sailor which has supplanted the other in popular favor, and which, going back at least to the middle of the eighteenth century, is still sung widely in England, in Ireland, and
occasionally in America. Even though we may readily allow that this song is likely to have had its rise after Sidney's day- and in its press-gang form long after--there is perhaps as good reason for regarding it as a traditional ballad as there is for so regarding "Bonny Bee Hom." It has been revamped and modernized more than once. by the broadside press; but all the while, for at least 200 years, it has gone on its way as a piece- transmitted by singing, and the singing has been independent of print. During that time the hero, as is usual in-songs that continue to live, has notably descended in the social scale, from the commander accompanied by "seven score good mariners" to the bridegroom impressed as a common seaman. In its longer form it has the makings of a more gripping story.
Brief by Richard L. Matteson Jr.
The ballad, The Lowlands of Holland, is based on or has a similar to the plot of "Bonny Bee Hom." The Lowlands of Holland has an active tradition abroad and has been found in the US and Canada. The "Bonny Bee Hom" disappeared from tradition.
See David Herd's Scots' Songs', 1776 [Napolean then being 7 years old]. James Oswald had published the tune "The Lowlands of Holland" in book 2 of 'The Caledonian Pocket Companion', c 1745. The song with a different tune is in 'The Scots Musical Museum;, II, #115, 1788.
US versions are found in SharpK, English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, 200; "Soldier Bride's Lament" Combs, F-S Etats-Unis, 173 and Gray, Sgs Ballads Me Lks, 88. Canadian versions were collected by Leach and also Peacock.
______________________
Sharp's Notes, 1916, One Hundred English Folksongs,Boston,Oliver Ditson Co.
Notes: Cecil Sharp's notes Follow: One of the earliest copies of this ballad is printed in Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (volume ii, p. 2, ed. 1776). It is also in the Roxburghe and Ebsworth Collections and in Johnson's Museum. The ballad appears also in Garlands, printed about 1760, as "The Sorrowful Lover's Regrate" and "The Maid's Lamentation for the Loss of her True Love," as well as on broadsides of more recent date. See also the Pedlar's Pack of Ballads (pp. 23-25); the Journal of the Folk-Song Society(volume I, P. 97; volume iii, P. 307); and Dr. Joyce's Ancient Irish Music (No. 68). The "vow" verse occurs in "Bonny Bee Horn," a well-known Scottish ballad (Child, No. 92). The words in the text are virtually as I took them down from the singer. The tune is partly Mixolydian. The word "box" in the third stanza is used in the old sense, that is "to hurry."