Cambric Shirt- Brooks (KY) 1920 Roberts
[My title, no title given. From Robert's In the Pines, 1978. Several versions have "love-yer" or "lovier" instead of lover (see for example Owens; Texas version 1952). An excerpt from Roberts/Agey's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
2. Elfin Knight:
Nearest parallel to the present text is in tee Northumbrian Ministry, pp. 79-80. Another text given by Child (II, 495, 496, from Leeds, 1884) has exactly the same refrain. Both of his examples lack my unusual stanza 9, but I find the substance of the stanza in a text from Vermont (NGMS, pp. 8-11). The only other evidence of the ballad in Kentucky was found in Clay County (adjoining Breathitt, the origin of my text) and printed by SharpK, no. 1. My text was recorded by Mrs. Stella Byrd Brooks, Breathitt County, in 1961. She had moved at an early age from Virginia and had learned this and other songs from her parents in about 1920.
SCALE: Hexachordal (f g a bb c d). MODE: plagal. RANGE: a - c" (Minor 10th). TONAL CENTER: F. Circular tune. PHRASE STRUCTURE: A B C D (2,2,2,2). MELODIC RELATIONSHIP: This tune is conspicuous for its jagged melodic contour, embracing wide intervallis skips. A comparison of measures 4 and 8 reveals a rather interesting tonal and rhythmic relationship (note the inversion of the tones C and A). Cf. NCF, IV, lB, first phrase only. The above tune has not been encountered in any of the variants of Child No. 2 examined by the editor. It is conceivable that the singer of this tune arbitrarily augmented what would normally be a measure of 4/4 meter in measure 4.
[Cambric Shirt]
Go tell her to buy me a cambric shirt
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
And make it so fast she can't see her own
And she shall be a true love-yer of mine.
Go tell her to wash it in yondo well
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Where never a drop of water fell,
And she shall be a true love-yer of mine.
Go tell her to hang it in yonda tree
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Betwixt the saltwater and the sea,
And she shall be a true love-yer of mine.
Go tell her to iron it with a cold rock iron
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Which never has been since Adam and Eve was born,
And she shall be a true love-yer of mine.
As you go over yondo hill
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Go take this message to that young lad,
And he shall be a true love-yer of mine.
Go tell him to plant him an acre of corn
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
And plow it in with an old ram's horn,
And he shall be a true love-yer of mine.
Go tell him to cut it with sickle and leather
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
And bind it up with a peacock's feather,
And he shall be a true love-yer of mine.
Go tell him to thresh it on the cold stone wall
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
And let never a grain of it fall,
And he shall be a true love-yer of mine.
Go tell him when he has done his work
Savory, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
To come and call for his cambric shirt,
And he shall be a true love-yer of mine.