Ah Mary Dear- Myrtle Stalker (MI) c.1899 Blount; Kittredge
[My title. From Ballads and Songs by G. L. Kittredge; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 30, No. 117 (Jul. - Sep., 1917), pp. 283-369. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
THE DROWSY SLEEPER.
"The Drowsy Sleeper" was printed in this Journal in 1907[1] from a copy collected by Miss Pettit in Kentucky (20: 260-261), and attention was called to its connection with a Nithsdale song given in part by Allan Cunningham in his edition of Burns, 1834 (4:285), as well as with a Sussex song and a Catnach broadside. In 1908 Belden printed three versions, two from Missouri and one from Arkansas, in Herrig's "Archiv," 119: 430-431. Other copies have since come in; and these are worth publishing, not only because of the literary relations of the piece, but also because of the curious varieties in which it occurs and its mixture with other songs.
The English song published by Sharp under the title of "Arise, Arise" ("Folk-Songs from Somerset," No. 99, 4: 56-57; "One Hundred English Folksongs," No. 47, pp. 106-107), is related to "The Drowsy Sleeper." Stanza I (Sharp) corresponds to stanza I of version III (p. 341, below); stanza 2, to stanzas 3 and 4; stanza 3, to stanza 5; Sharp's stanza 5 resembles Miss Wyman's stanza 8 (p. 340, below), and his eighth stanza agrees with the last stanza of Belden's version II ("Archiv," 119: 431). Sharp's version agrees pretty closely with the Catnach broadside entitled "The Drowsy Sleeper" (Harvard College, 25242.2, fol. 172). See also "Journal of Folk-Song Society, " I: 269-270 ("O who is that that raps at my window?"). The conclusion of versions IV and V (below) shows admixture of "The Silver Dagger;" [2] and this is true also of a broadside text of "The Drowsy Sleeper," published by H. J. Wehman, New York (No. 518, "Who's at My Bedroom Window?" Harvard College Library).
IV. [Ah, Mary Dear] From Dr. Alma Blount of the State Normal College, Ypsilanti, Mich., March 12, 1914, as learned (about fifteen years before) by Miss Myrtle Stalker of Cheboygan, Mich., from a maid in the family, thought to be Irish.
I. "Ah, Mary dear, go ask your mother
If you my wedded wife can be;
If she says no, return and tell me,
And I'll no longer trouble thee."
2. "I dare not go and ask my mother,
For she is bound to set us free;
So, Willie dear, go seek another -
There's prettier girls in the world than me."
3. "Ah, Mary dear, go ask your father
If you my wedded wife can be;
If he says no, return and tell me,
And I'll no longer trouble thee."
4. " I dare not go and ask my father,
For he is on his bed of rest,
And beside him lies the silver dagger,
To pierce the heart that I love best."
5. So Willie took the silver dagger
And pierced it through his aching heart,
Saying, "Adieu, adieu to you, kind Mary;
Adieu, adieu, now we must part."
6. So Mary took the bloody dagger
And pierced it through her snow-white breast,
Saying, "Adieu, adieu, to you, cruel parents;
Adieu, adieu - I died for love."