Billie Lamkin- Murphy (MI) 1931 Gardner B
[My title. From: Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan, p. 314 by Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering; 1939. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2105]
127 LAMKIN (Child, No. 93)
Michigan A is so fragmentary that it is difficult to tell which of the Child versions (II, 320-342) it most resembles. In only two Child versions, E and W, and in no other American version noted, does Lamkin construct an entrance for himself. It is notable that in Michigan B the lady is not actually murdered, nor is Lamkin punished, as he is in most other texts, by hanging, burning, or boiling in a pot full of lead. For additional texts see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, pp. 200--06; Davis, pp. 354-359; Fuson, pp. 71-72 [not in Fuson]; Henry, JAFL, XLIV, 61-63; Mary Ella Leather, The FolJ-Lore of Herefordshire (London, 1912), pp. 199-200; Sharp, I, 201-207; Tolman, JAFL, XXIX, 162-164; and Tolman and Eddy, JAFL, XXXV, 344.
B. [Billie Lamkin.] Obtained in 1931 by Miss Helen Jackson, a colored student in Wayne University, Detroit, from the singing of Mr. Wendell Murphy, who had learned the ballad from his mother; he did not know her nationality.
1 Said the Lord to his Lady
When he went from home,
"Take care of Billie Lamkin,
For he'll be around."
2 "What care I for Lamkin
Or any of his kin
When my doors are fast bolted,
And windows pinned in?"
3 At the hour of midnight
When Lamkin he came,
He knocked at the door,
And he rang at the ring.
4 So ready was the servant
To rise and let him in;
He pierced her son Johnny
And caused him to scream.
5 And down came the madam
From a bower so high;
"Who pierced my son Johnny,
And what made him cry?
6 "He's either been hurt
By you or your beau."
"No, he's neither been hurt
By me or my beau;
But breast milk or repadding [1]
Will never quiet him more."
7 "O Lamkin, O Lamkin,
If you'll spare me my life,
I'll give you my daughter Betsy
For your wedded wife."
8 "You keep your daughter Betsy,
She'll do you some good;
Come hold the silver basin
To catch your dying heart's blood."
9 "O Lamkin, O Lamkin,
If you'll stay your hand,
I'll give you more gold and more silver
Than's between sea and land."
10 "All the gold and the silver
That's between sea and land
Won't keep my bright sword
From around your white band."
1. derived from pap= papping?