A Lady Gay- Flannery (KY) 1917 Sharp I
[My title, replacing the generic Child title. From Cecil Sharp; English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; Sharp/Karpeles I; 1932. The 1932 Edition notes follow. In Sharp's diary he says the informant is Mr. Flannery (see below).
This melody with first verse appears in Raine & Sharp's, Mountain Ballads for Social Singing (1923) pp. 26-27. The additional text (7 stanzas) is different.
R. Matteson 2015]
No. 22. The Wife of Usher's Well.
Texts without tunes:—Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 79. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xiii. 119; xxiii. 429; xxx. 305; xxxix. 96. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 88.
Texts with tunes:—E. M. Leather's Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, p. 198. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 278 and 576.
See also The Cruel Mother (No. 10), Tune B. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 5. Texts A and B are remarkable in that the children cite the mother's 'proud heart' as the reason that has caused them to 'lie in the cold clay', a motive which is absent from other English and Scottish versions.
Cecil Sharp Diary 1917; Sharp diary 1917 page 158. Wednesday 30 May 1917 - Berea:
Maud and I walked round after breakfast to see Mr Combes [Combs] who sang me several nice songs. Finished writing up my tunes before lunch. After rest wrote several letters, including one to Constance, sent off cable to her "Accept" concerning Novellos’ book of songs for Training Colleges. At 4 p.m. went to Raine’s office to meet Mrs. Hayes who gave me one more song. Miss Stoton also sang me Golden Vanity and a Mr. Flannery several others.
I. [A Lady Gay] Sung by Mrs. L. K. FLANNERY at Berea, Madison Co., Ky., May 30, 1917
Pentatonic. Mode 2.
1. There was a lady and a lady gay,
And children she had three;
She sent them a - way to the North Amerikee
For to learn those grammaree.
2 They hadn't been there very long,
Scarce three months and a day,
When death, sweet death came hastening along
And took those babes away.
3 The lady dreamed a dream by night,
All in a backward room.
She dreamed that she saw her sweet little babes
Come walking in the light of the moon.
4 She spread her table broad and wide,
On it put bread and wine.
Come eat, come drink, my sweet little babes,
Come eat, come drink of mine.
5 We cannot eat your bread, mother,
Neither can we drink your wine,
For yonder stands our Saviour so dear.
Come eat, come drink of mine.
6 It was about old Christmas time,
The nights being long and cold,
When the lady spied her three little babes
Come walking into the room.
7 Let's go, says the oldest one,
For the chickens are crowing for day,
And yonder stands our Saviour so dear,
And we must fly away.
8 She spread her bed in the backward room,
And on it she put white sheets,
On top of that a golden spread
That they might the better sleep.
9 We cannot rest on your bed, mother,
We cannot sleep on your sheets,
For yonder stands our Saviour so dear,
And we must rest at his feet.
10 Marble stones at our heads, mother,
Cold clay upon our feet;
The tears that was shed over us last night
Would have wet our winding sheet.