As The Dew Flies Over the Valley- Longworth/W. Ford (WS) 1938 Cowell
[If you wonder how the dew (doo) flies over the valley- it's originally English for "dove," although I'm sure the American singers who have sung it didn't think of it as "dove." Warde learned it pre1938 from Mary Longworth of Wisconsin. His mother Elizabeth also knows an almost identical version and was recorded by Cowell in 1942.
To listen to Warde's version:
http://memory.loc.gov/afc/afccc/audio/a419/a4197b1.mp3]
This was recorded by Sidney Robertson Cowell in Central Valley, California on December 26, 1938. This forms part of a group of field materials documenting Warde Ford performing Anglo-American songs on December 25, 26, and 27, 1938 and September 4, 1939, collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell in Boomtown [Central Valley], Shasta County, California.
Warde Ford move to California from Wisconsin around 1938. Here's a bio from Folk Music from Wisconsin 1937: Warde Ford was member of the Ford-Walker family of singers. In the liner notes to Wolf River Songs [Folkways 1956], Sidney Robertson Cowell estimated the family's repertory included about 140 titles, "some comparatively rare Childs ballads, lumber camp ballads and songs of the sea, along with many love songs, (most of them not long from Ireland), ditties made up to suit special occasions, and stage and minstrel songs.
Ford began recording for the government in 1937 while working in the northwoods of Wisconsin. He had moved to Crandon from New York State and spent until his 30s as a woodsman. He had a keen memory and could sometimes recite a song after hearing it only once. Robertson's 1937 recordings of Ford would mark the beginning of a fifteen-year folksong relationship that would go on at intervals in Wisconsin, California, and in Berlin, Germany. Robertson estimates that she recorded around 200 songs from Ford, at least two-thirds of them long ballads about historical events.
In the late 1930s he moved to California with his family to work on the Shasta Dam, and in the mid-1940s he joined the Army. In Wolf River Songs, Cowell writes that Ford has occasionally sung popular songs with a crowd or with a guitar-playing friend, but when he sings the family songs, he sings alone and unaccompanied. This is a wholly vocal tradition, not an instrumental one.
As The Dew[1] Flies Over the Valley- Elizabeth Ford (CA) 1942 Cowell; Bronson no. 18
Sweet Willy came joging home from the plow,
Jinny fair John fair Rose Marie
Saying wife, dear Wife, is the dinner ready now
As the dew [1] flies over the green valley.
2 Oh no you dirty ugly elf
Jinny fair John fair Rose Marie
If you want any dinner you'll get it yourself
As the dew flies over the green valley
3 So down to the barn Sweet Willy he flew
Jinny fair John fair Rose Marie
And down with a good fat wether he slew,
As the dew flies over the green valley
4 He wrapt the Skin round his wife back
Jinny fair John fair Rose Marie
And with two sticks he went whack whack whack
As the dew flies over the green valley
5 I'll tell my parents and my kin
Jinny fair John fair Rose Marie
That you have beat me black within
As the dew flies over the green valley
6 You may tell your parents and your kin
Jinny fair John fair Rose Marie
I was only a taning a fat wether's skin
As the dew flies over the green valley
1. dew= doo= dove