Beaulampkins- Smith/Rayfield (NC) c.1860 Brown A
[From Brown Collection volume 2, 1952 and volume 4. Their notes follow.
Submitted by Thomas P. Smith who, with his brother, submitted questionable texts to Davis in the early 1930s. A possibility exists that is was composed by Smith from print. However, after studying his notes I believe this was sung by a number of his relatives and neighbors and this is a compilation taken from oral renderings. According to his MS he heard it sung 32 years ago when a small boy (c.1883) by his grandmother.
To read his MS: http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/19495
See a similar version in Davis, More trad. ballads, 1960, probably submitted by his brother R. L. Lee Smith.
R. Matteson 2015]
29. Lamkin (Child 93)
[See music below]
This gruesome little ballad is traced no further back than the latter eighteenth century, but was widely known and sung a hunred and fifty years ago; Child has twenty-six versions of it (some of them merely fragments). And it is still not forgotten. It has been reported since Child's time from Aberdeenshire (LL 71-2), Cambridgeshire (JFSS v 83-4), Surrey (JFSS i 212-13), Hampshire (JFSS II III), and Somerset (JFSS v 81-2), and on this side of the water from Newfoundland (FSN 17), Maine (BBM 200-6, JAFL Lii 70-4), Massachusetts (FSONE 303-5), New York (JAFL XIII 117-18), Virginia (TBV 354-9). Kentucky (SharpK I 202-7), Tennessee (FSSH 91-3, BTFLS viii 75), North Carolina (JAFL xiii 118, SharpK i 201-2, SSSA 62-4, FSRA 76, SFLQ V 137-8), Arkansas (OFS i 141-2), Ohio (BSO 59-60, Indiana (BSI 122-4), and Michigan (BSSM 313). The name Lamkin (which takes in tradition a variety of forms, some of them scarcely traceable to that original) is explained by Miss Gilchrist (JEFDSS I 1-17) as a Flemish form of the name Lambert; Flemings were famous for their skill as masons and were sometimes brought to England as builders. The motivation of Lamkin's savagery, in many texts, is that he has not been paid by the lord for the building of his castle, but in many other texts no motive is offered. The daughter Betsy appears in two of Child's versions and frequently in American texts. The false nurse, with her bitter hatred of her mistress, is a persistent figure. The macabre humor of Lamkin rocking the cradle in which the baby is screaming its life away while the nurse carries on a long dialogue with the lady upstairs marks most of the Child versions and is retained in many of the American texts.
A. 'Beaulampkins.' Sent by Thomas Smith of Zionville, Watauga county, in March 1914 to C. Alphonso Smith and afterwards added to the North Carolina collection. "As sung by Mrs. Emma Smith and Mrs. Polly Rayfield, both of whom heard it when children, probably forty or fifty years ago. . . . Mrs. Rebecca Isenhour of this place sings the sixteenth verse ... as follows:
'Oh father,' said daughter Betsy,
'Pray do not blame me.
For Beaulampkins has killed your lady
And little babye, babee.' "
The name Beaulampkins is evidently a folk-etymology of Bolamkin, i.e., bold Lamkin, a form under which the name appears in many texts.
1 Beaulampkins was as fine a mason
As ever laid stone.
He built a fine castle
And pay he got none.
2 Said the landlord to his lady,
'When I am from home
Beware of Beaulampkins
Should he catch you alone.'
3 'Oh no,' said his lady,
'You need not fear him.
Our doors are fast bolted
And our windows barred in.'
4 But Beaulampkins rode up
When the landlord was away,
And, seeing the false nurse
At a window, did say:
5 'Where is the landlord.
Or is he at home?'
'He is gone to merry England
For to visit his son.'
6 'Where is his lady?
Or is she within?'
'She is upstairs sleeping,'
Said the false nurse to him.
7 'How will I enter?'
Said Beaulampkins to her.
The false nurse then arose
And unbolted the door.
8 'If the lady is upstairs
How will we get her down?'
'We will stick her little baby
Full of needles and pins.'
9 Beaulampkins rocked hard
And the false nurse she sung,
While tears and red blood
From the cradle did run.
10 The lady came downstairs
Not thinking of harm.
When Beaulampkins arose
And caught her in his arms.
11 'Oh spare me, Beaulampkins!
Oh spare me one day!
And you shall have as much gold
As your horse can carry away.
12 *Oh spare me, Beaulampkins!
Oh spare me a while!
Don't you hear how mournful
My little baby does cry?
13 'Oh spare me, Beaulampkins!
Oh spare me one hour!
And you shall have my daughter Betsy,
My own blooming flower !'
14 'You may keep your daughter Betsy
To wade through the flood.
Hold here that silver basin
To catch your heart's blood.'
15 'Oh stay, my daughter Betsy,
In your chamber so high
Till you see your dear father
As he comes riding by.'
16 'Oh, father,' said his daughter Betsy
When the landlord came home,
'Beaulampkins has killed my mother
While you was gone.'
17 Beaulampkins was hanged
To gallows so high,
While the false nurse was burned
To a stake standing by.
A. 'Beaulampkins.' Sung by Mrs. Emma Smith. Recorded as MS score at Zionville, Watauga county, in March 1914. As in other songs with numerous versions, one can also here find some musical idioms which seem to be standard. Note particularly the ending, which is alike in all four versions. Both 29A and 29A(i) differentiate their cadences, while in 29A(2) and 29B both cadences are alike.
For melodic relationship cf. ***SharpK I 201, No. 27 A, measures 1-4, last four in the basic outline ; ibid. 205, No. 27D, last two measures; **FSSH 9 (from the impossible notation of the tune nobody would suspect any melodic relationship with our version); BMFSB 20, especially the cadences, besides other similarities. Scale: Mode III, plagal. ab (4,4). Tonal Center: a-flat. Structure: abcb1 (2,2,2,2) = ab (4,4).