Bow, And Balance To Me- Sung by E.G. (Gale) Huntington (Martha's Vineyard, Mass.) 1958
[From Folk Songs from Martha's Vineyard; E.G. Huntington; Album No. FA 2032; 1958 by Folkways Records & Service Corp. Folkways bio and notes follow.
R. Matteson 2011, 2014]
E. G. HUNTINGTON has spent most of his fifty-five years on the island of Martha's Vineyard off the southeastern cost of Massachusetts. In those years, he has seen sails gradually disappear from American waters, to be replaced entirely by steam and diesel power. When sails went, so too went the men who handled sails. They were the men who sang the old ballads, the shanties, and the cabin and foc'sle songs. Fortunately, Mr. Huntington made it his duty to find and preserve as many of the old songs as possible.
Mr. Huntington is a graduate of Stetson University in Deland, Florida. After graduation, he worked, for a short time in Deland, after which he returned to Martha's Vineyard, and, with the exception of a few years during which time he taught school on the mainland, he has lived there ever since. He first became interested in folk music when he met his wife, Mildred Tilton. All of her family was musical, and it was from her grandfather, Welcome Tilton, and her great-uncles, William and Zeb Tilton, that he learned many of his best songs. In addition to collecting and singing the old songs, Mr. Huntington is a square dannce fiddler. He is also an authority on the history of Martha's Vineyard, with special emphasis on the history of its Indians. He is presently a member of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society and of the Society for American Archaeology.
SIDE I, Band 7: BOW AND BALANCE TO ME
One of the most widely distributed British traditional ballads found in America, "The Two Sisters" (Child #10), as it is most widely known, has proven to be excellent material for detailed study. Paul G. Brewster has made an extensive analysis of this ballad and believes that it is definitely Scandinavian in origin, from whence it spread to Scotland, England and America. Francis James Child considered the heart of the ballad to be the making of a musical instrument from the drowned sister's body, the instrument in turn revealing the identity of the murderer. Most recently collected texts have eliminated this supernatural motif entirely.
This version is of particular interest in that not only is the supernatural motif removed but that the heroine is saved from her fate by the miller who pulls her out of the brook. Most American versions end with the miller first saving her, then robbing her of jewelry and pushing her back in to drown. Mr. Huntington learned this version from his father.
There was an old woman lived by the sea shore,
Oh, bow down,
There was an old woman lived by the sea shore,
Oh, bow and balance to me,
There was an old woman lived by the sea shore,
And she had daughters three or more,
Oh, I'll be true to my love if my love be true to me.
A young man came a-courting there,
And he made love to the youngest fair.
He bought the youngest a nice new hat,
And the oldest sister she didn't like that.
Oh, sister, dear sister, let's go to the shore,
And watch the ships come sailing o'er.
And as they walked along the sea brim,
The oldest she pushed the youngest in.
Oh, sister dear, come lend me your hand,
And you can have my house and land.
I'll neither lend you hand nor glove,
For all I want is your own true love.
But the miller he got him his fishing hook,
And he fished that fair maiden right out of the brook.