A Lady Gay- Gibson (KY) 1917 Sharp L
[My title, replacing the generic Child title. Single stanza w/music from Cecil Sharp; English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; Sharp/Karpeles I; 1932. The 1932 Edition notes follow.
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.
Sharp diary 1917 page 241. Tuesday 21 August 1917 - Oneida: Directly after breakfast — at 6 a.m. — tramped off 5 miles to Teges Creek to make another shot at Mrs Bishop. This time found her at home. Got there at 8, stayed 2 hours and returned by 11.30 in time for dinner — good walking considering state of roads and great heat. Rested after dinner, wrote up books, entertained Mrs Adams at tea, then wrote up books again till supper. After supper George Gibson, stone-mason, came in and sang me two good songs.
L. [A Lady Gay] Sung by Mr. GEORGE W. GIBSON at Oneida, Clay Co., Ky., Aug. 21, 1917
Hexatonic (no 6th).
There was a lady, and a lady gay,
And children she had three;
O she sent them off to the northern school
For to learn their grammaree.