A Neat Young Lady- W. Palmer (VA) 1916 Davis EE
[From Davis; More Traditional Ballad of Virginia; 1960. His notes follow. Davis attributes a stanza from John Randolph (dated 1822, see below in his notes) which somehow he attributes to Gypsy Davy-- I don't agree.
This version could have appeared in TBVa, 1929 but did not- Davis offers no explanation.
R. Matteson 2015]
33. THE GYPSY LADDIE.
(Child No. 200)
TBVa prints eight texts and three tunes of this ballad. Since then, nine new texts and two tunes have been recovered in Virginia. Of these, five texts and the two tunes are given here. The history of gypsies or "Egyptians" in England and Scotland is a confused and contradictory one. They are alternately tolerated and persecuted. The name of Johnny Faa recurs in the early records as one of their leaders. As early as 1540 or earlier, a Johnne Faw's right and title as "lord and earl of Little Egypt" were recognized by King James V of Scotland, but in the next year Egyptians were ordered to quit the realm within thirty days on pain of death. The gypsies were expelled from Scotland by act of Parliament in 1609. Soon after this date there are several records of the execution of Johnny, or Willie Faa and of other Egyptians, culminating in the execution of a notorious chieftain of that name in 1624. This seems to have impressed the popular mind and may well be the basis of the ballad. Later Scottish tradition and some of the ballads themselves have identified the lady as the wife of the mid-seventeenth-century Earl of Cassilis, apparently without any foundation whatever-- except that the first line of some texts of the ballad have the gypsies come to the "castle-gate." The earliest extant copies of the ballad date from the early eighteenth century, and Child finds that the English ballad, though printed earlier (around 1720), was derived from the Scottish. He finds no European analogues.
Child briefly recounts the story of the earliest traditional Scottish version (Child A) as follows: "Gypsies sing so sweetly at our lord's gate as to entice his lady to come down; as soon as she shows herself, they cast the glamour on her. She gives herself over to the chief Gypsy, Johny Faa by name, without reservation of any description. Her lord upon returning and finding her gone, sets out to recover her, and captures and hangs fifteen gypsies."
The story has become both simpler and more complicated in the United States: Coffin lists nine different story types, though the variations are slight. The most common American version has the lady, charmed but not "glamourized," desert her husband willingly to follow the gypsy. The husband follows and finds her, but she will not return. Usually the husband demands the return of the shoes she wears, and the conclusion generally compares her former comfort to her present more rugged existence. The hanging of the gypsies does not occur in American texts, but occasionally the lady repents and returns home, or the gypsy casts her off, or there is a slightly more complicated ending. American texts seem generally to follow, with variations, the Child sequence H, I, J. Belden also mentions Child G, the earliest English broadside copy. The most common story lines are Coffin's Story Types A and H. Child prints twelve texts or partial texts of the ballad, from England, Scotland, and America, with Scotland predominating. Miss Dean-Smith (p. 69) shows the ballad still vigorous in recent English tradition, especially in the West and South, in the counties of Somerset, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Shropshire. One of Cecil Sharp's Somerset versions known as "The Raggle Taggle Gipsies O" (see C. J. Sharp and C. L. Marson, Folk Songs from Somerset, First Series, pp. 18-19, and C. J. Sharp, One Hundred English Folk Songs, pp. 13-16) has become the most popular and widely sung version of the ballad in "non-folk" circles. The Scottish tradition appears even stronger. Gavin Greig and Alexander Keith (pp. 126-29) report eight versions falling into two distinct types. They print one example of each type and four tunes, under the general title of "The Three Gypsy Laddies," three being the number of gypsies involved in all the recent Scottish versions, elsewhere generally seven. Back in 1917 Professor Kittredge warned (JAFL, XXX, 34) American collectors that the popular Sharp version of "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies" was apt to turn up in America and that collectors who ran across this song, should scrutinize its pedigree very carefully. Two of the three texts and one tune printed by Cox in Traditional Ballads Mainly from West Virginia, pp. 33-35, are so close to the Sharp text and tune as to suggest a failure to heed Professor Kittredge's warning. Miss Eddy seems to have fallen into the same error in printing (pp. 67-68) a text and tune from Ohio which she herself declares to be "almost identical with Sharp's text and tune in One Hundred English Folk-Songs."
The ballad is popular in the United States and has been found also in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. A sampling of its appearance in representative American publications introduced the following results: Cox, four texts and one tune (later added, one text and tune, not counting the two suspect items mentioned above); Sharp-Karpeles, eleven texts (or partial texts) and eleven tunes; Barry, six texts and two tunes; Randolph, seven texts and three tunes; Brown, seven texts and thirteen tunes; Belden, three texts, no tune; Morris, two texts and two tunes; and so on.
The present Virginia texts contain no reference to Johnny Faa or to the Earl of Cassilis. The hero varies from "Black Jack Davy" in AA to "Black Cat Davy" in BB, to "The Gyps of Davy" in CC, surprisingly to "Harvey Walker" in DD, to "Black-eyed Davey" in EE. Texts not here reproduced have "Black Jack Daird," and "Egyptian Davio" as variants. AA and BB, both with tunes from .records, represent the Coffin Story Type H, in which some stanzas from the old English folk-song, "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday" or "My Pretty Little Miss," have been introduced near the beginning of the song. BB is a compressed version which omits the husband's homecoming and pursuit. CC is without the intrusion of the "seventeen [or sixteen] come Sunday" stanzas and tells the story only from the point of the "landlord's" coming home. DD and EE introduced the nonsense refrains found in many American texts but lacking in AA, BB, and CC. DD, with its "Harvey Walker', title and reference to Johnnie and to Jimmy Taylor, seems to have picked up some local characters somewhere (C.f. "Bill Harman," Cox D, p. 133). DD. like a number of versions of this ballad (see JAFL, XXX, 323-24, and Belden, p. 75, for example), is definitely moving toward nonsense and has fully arrived there in the last two stanzas imported from a nonsense song, perhaps "Devilish Mary." The curious fragment EE, shows more verbal variation than any other of these texts, but it tells a very confused story.
Three other texts long resident in Virginia and contributed directly to the Virginia Collection are not reproduced here because they were sent also to the Brown Collection and are printed in full there (see Brown, II, 162-65, and IV, 84-85).
It is probably to this ballad that John Randolph of Roanoke is referring when, in writing to his niece on February 20, 1822, he asks: "Do you know a ballad that used to be sung to me when I was a child by a mulatto servant girl of my cousin Patsy Banister, called Patience, about a rich suitor offering 'His lands so broad' and his golden store to a girl of spirit whose reply was somehow thus:
What care I for your golden treasures?
What care I for your house and land?
What care I for your costly pleasures?
So as I get but a handsome man.
I pray thee get me that ballad. I can give you the tune." (See William Cabell Bruce, Life of John Randolph of Roanoke, I, 38). If this is the ballad referred to, as seems most likely, the Virginia tradition of "The Gypsy Laddie" is carried back to the later eighteenth century, John Randolph having been born in 1773. It is a pleasure to recognize the distinguished Virginia statesman as a lover, singer, and collector of ballads.
EE. "A Neat Young Lady." Collected by Miss Alfreda M. Peel, of Salem, Va. Sung by W. Palmer, of Salem, Va. Roanoke County. November 5, 1916. The title and the first stanza suggest the intrusion of some later song. Perhaps that is why, according to the manuscript, the "chorus" or refrain is picked up after the second stanza.
1 A neat young lady comes tripping downstairs
With her shoes all laced in silver,
A bottle of wine all in her hands,
A drinking to her danger.
2 "Saddle up, saddle up my little bay horse,
My black is not so speedy;
I'll ride all night and I'll ride all day
Till I overtake my lady."
Chorus: Come-a-riddle um-a-ding,
Come-a-riddle um-a-ding,
Come-a-riddle um-a-ding dum day-du.
3 The owner of the manor came home that night,
Inquiring for his lady.
He inquired all through the town,
"She's gone with the Black-eyed Davey."
4 "Oh, will you, my dear?
Oh, will you, my honey?
I swear by the sword that hangs by my side,
That I never will lack for money."
5 We rode and we rode to vine water side,
That looked so deep and wavy.
The tears came trickly down my cheeks,
There I beheld my lady.