Constant Farmer's Son- Maurice Cardy (Ess) c.1870 Wood
[From: Folk Songs from the Essex-Suffolk Border by Thomas Wood, Ralph Vaughan Williams and A. G. Gilchrist; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 8, No. 33 (Dec., 1929), pp. 125-135. Notes online and from JFSS follow. Additional text from Burstow.
R. Matteson 2016]
Maurice Cardy was nearly 70 when Wood noted down his songs, and worked for him occasionally, when an extra pair of hands was needed around the place. He had been born in 1859 and brought up the only son of a farmworker, Edward Eaves, in Deadman's Lane. By 1881, he was married and still living in the same lane, and by 1911 he had progressed to be Farm Bailiff at Chapel Farm, still in the same hamlet where he was born. Cardy had learned The Constant Farmer's Son and The Young Squire from his mother, whom he recalled singing them around 1870.
Wood: The singer was evidently uncertain of some notes, as he varied them from verse to verse. These I have indicated. I suggest that the modal character of the tune may have puzzled the singer, as occasionally he sang a semitone instead of a tone. He used gestures-stiff and awkward ones, but still definite and explanatory gestures-- which he said were used by his mother when she sang the song. The last two words of the last verse were always repeated when he went through the song, which again he explained as the custom of his mother.-T. W.
The text sung by Maurice Cardy was almost identical with that given by Miss Broadwood, Journal, Vol. i, p. 161, and in her English Traditional Songs and Carols, and is therefore not reprinted here. These words are well known on broadsides. See also Miss Broadwood's note on " Lord Burling's (or Burlington's) Sister; or, The Murdered Servant-Man," Vol. v, p. 125, in which she points out the likeness in plot to " The Constant Farmer's Son," and traces both themes to one used by Boccaccio in the Decameron and later in versified form by Hans Sachs (Der ermor dete Lorenz) and Keats (Isabella and the Pot of Basil).
Dr. Wood's tune is a variant of the very well-known " Banks of Sweet Dundee "- one of our stock ballad-airs-but interesting on account of the Mixolydian influence it shows, as in other variants noted by myself.-A. G. G
THE CONSTANT FARMER'S SON. Noted by THOMAS WOOD. SUNG BY MAURICE CARDY.
[MIXOLYDIAN INFLUENCE]
It's of a rich merchant's daughter, so beautiful I'm told,
She was modest, fair and handsome, Her parents loved her well;
She was admired by lords and squires, But all their hopes were vain;
For there was one was a farmer's son young Mary's heart could gain.
[Long time young William courted her, and fixed their wedding day,[1]
Their parents all consented, but her brothers both did say
"There lives a lord who pledged his word, and him she shall not shun;
We will betray and then we'll slay her constant farmer's son."
A fair was held not far from town; these brothers went straightway,
And asked young William;s company with them to pass the day;
But mark - returning home again they swore his race was run,
Then, with a stake, the life did take of her constant farmer's son.
These villians then returning home "O sister," they did say,
"Pray think no more of your false love, but let him go his way,
For it's truth we tell, in love he fell, and with some other one;
Therefore we come to tell the same of the constant farmer's son."
As on her pillow Mary lay, she had a dreadful dream,
She dreamt she saw his body lay down by a crystal stream,
Then she arose, put on her clothes, to seek her love did run ,
When dead and cold, she did behold her constant farmer's son.
The salt tear stood upon his cheeks, all mingled with his gore,
She shrieked in vain, to ease her pain, and kiss'd him ten times o'er,
She gathered green leaves from the trees, to keep him from the sun,
One night and day she passed away with her constant farmer's son.
But hunger it came creeping on; poor girl she shrieked with woe;
To try and find his murderer she straightway home did go,
Saying "Parents dear, you soon shall hear, a dreadful deed is done,
In yonder vale lies, dead and pale, my constant farmer's son."
Up came her eldest brother and said "It is not me,"
The same replied the younger one, and swore most bitterly,
But young Mary said "Don;t turn so red, nor try the laws to shun,
You've done the deed and you shall bleed for my constant farmer's son!"
Those villains soon they owned the guilt, and for the same did die;
Young Mary fair, in deep despair, she never ceased to cry;
The parents they did fade away, the glass of life was run,
And Mary cried, in sorrow died for her constant farmer's son.]
1. The text after the first stanza taken from Henry Burstow in 1893.