The Auld Song from Cow Head- Bull (NL) 1929
[Single stanza with music from Ballads and Sea-Songs of Newfoundland By Elizabeth Bristol Greenleaf, Grace Yarrow Mansfield- 1933. Notes by Kittredge follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
This is the first record of this moving ballad in North America. Mrs. Rosie White's air is similar in its first phrase to the air for "The Two Brothers" (Child, no. 49), as printed in British Ballads from Maine, p. 99. Campbell and Sharp print three verses of "The Two Brothers" (No. 11, B, C, and D; Child, No. 49) which are like verses of "The Unquiet Grave." The two ballads are evidently allied. and it is interesting to see that the connection is retained in the music as well as in the words. For "The Unquiet Grave" in England see Merrick, Folk-Songs from Sussex (Book V of Sharp's Folk-Songs of England), pp. 16-21; Sharp and Marson, Folk Songs from Sommerset, I, 14-15; Sharp, One Hundred English Folk-Songs, 10. 24 (with notes. pp. vii-viii); Sharp, England Folk Songs, p. 18-19 (and references, p. xii); A. Williams. Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames. p. 16; Leather, The Folk·Lore of Herefordshire, pp. 202-203; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, VIII, 26-27 (tune only).
The Auld Song from Cow Head- Sung by REV. GIBBS BULL, Exploits, Newfoundland, 1929;
How cauld those winds do blow, dear Laird,
What heavy drops of rain!
I never had but one true love,
And she from me was slain.