Cambric Shirt- Bryant (IN) 1936 Brewster B
[My title. From Brewster: Ballads and Songs of Indiana; 1940. Brewster's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2011]
THE ELFIN KNIGHT (Child, No. 2)
Five variants, all more or less fragmentary, of this ballad have been recovered in Indiana. They correspond most closely to Sargent and Kittredge A, although, as is usually the case in ballads of this type, all traces of the wooer's supernatural character have disappeared.
For American texts, see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, p. 3 (four variants and two airs) ; Gray, p. 78 (one variant) ; Journal, VII, 228; XVIII, 49, 212; XIX, 130; XXIII, 430; XXVI, 174; XXX, 283; PTFLS, X, 137; Henry, Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands, p. 31 (fragment).
English texts are to be found in Sharp, Folk-Songs of England, III, 21; Greig, Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs, 1-2 (two airs); Baring-Gould, A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes, p. 3; Broad-wood and Maitland, English County Songs, p. 12 (with air); Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I, 83; II, 212; III, 274.
The ballad seems to be known locally as "The Two Lovers" or "I Want You to Make Me a Cambric Shirt."
B. No title given. [Cambric Shirt] Contributed by Mrs. Thomas M. Bryant, of Evansville, Indiana. Vanderburg County. January 2, 1936.
1. "As you go out to yonders town,
Every rose grows merry in time,
Give my respects to that young lady;
Then she shall be a true lover of mine.*
2. "Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Every rose grows merry in time,
And make it without any needle-work;
Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
3. "Tell her to wash it in yonders spring,
Every rose grows merry in time,
Where water never flows nor never's been seen;
Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
4. "Tell her to hang it on yonders thorn,
Every rose grows merry in time,
That's never been budded since Adam was born;
Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
5. "As you go out to yonders town,
Every rose grows merry in time,
Give my respects to that young man;
Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
6. "Tell him to plow it with a young ram's horn,
Every rose grows merry in time,
And plant it all over with one grain of corn;
Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
7. "Tell him to reap it with a sickle of leather,
Every rose grows merry in time,
And bind it all in a peafowl feather;
Then he shall be a true lover of mine."
* The last two lines of each stanza are to be repeated.