Dear Wilson, My Son- Marston (ME) 1867 BBM- E
[My title. From British Ballads from Maine by Barry, Eckstorm, Smyth, 1929, version E. From all Barry's ballad collecting and research- clearly Lord Randal was Barry's magnum opus. Barry's (and Eckstorm/Smyth's) extensive notes follow. They give versions A-O with three sections of notes, the first mainly covering the pedigree of Child I a and b from Elizabeth Foster, who lived briefly in Maine. Version O, being a similar age, is the link to Child I a.
Child I c, of a similar age, is from Miss Ellen Marston of New Bedford, who may be related- further investigation is warranted.
R. Matteson 2014]
LORD RANDALL
(Child 12)
This ballad, one of the most widely known in American tradition, offers a field for study to show the relative rates of traditional change, as affecting text and melody. Every text, including fragments, and every tune should therefore be recorded.
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The fatal meal, in many texts, was of "eels," which are generally described as "streaked," "striped," or "black, striped with yellow." European copies call them eels, fishes, a fish with yellow stripes, a snake and the like, apparently meaning one of the little newts found in damp places and popularly supposed to be poisonous.
The text which follows, representing the Tiranti, or Tyranna-group (Child I), though apparently slight and defective, is important in the history of "Lord Randall." Professor Child says of his I text (I, 152, 163) that it is "a version current in eastern Massachusetts [which] may be traced back as far as any" [of the English texts], and that it came from Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, who was born in Maine in 1789 and later removed to Massachusetts, who is supposed to have learned it from her mother during the few years that the family resided in Maine.
In examining the manuscripts bequeathed to Harvard University by Professor Child, Mr. Barry came upon an old letter which stated that Elizabeth Foster was the daughter of Justus Soper. With this much known, it was an easy task to trace her. She was an own sister of Mary (Soper) Carr, whose portrait forms the frontispiece of this book, and the grandaunt of Mrs. Susie Carr Young, who has contributed so many texts and airs which had come down in the Soper family. So far from Mrs. Foster's family having lived but a short time in Maine, Samuel Soper came to the Penobscot years before the Revolutionary War and his numerous descendants still occupy the region where he settled.
Samuel Soper and Katharine Ruggles, his wife, had a son Justus, born in 1760, who married Elizabeth Viles of Orland. Their third child, Elizabeth, born in 1?89, went when young to Massachusetts, where she was brought up by her aunt Esther Soper; but the family remained in Orland, where her mother died in 1850 and her father in the year following. Elizabeth (Soper) Foster lived in Dorchester and two of her children married into the Pope family there. A granddaughter was Mrs. Lily F. Wesselhoeft, who secured the text for Professor Child.
Now while it was possible for Elizabeth Foster to learn her Tiranti text from the Soper, the Viles, or the Ruggles families, it was just as possible for her to learn it from someone in Massachusetts. Mrs. Young searched long and faithfully among the Soper kindred in Maine and Massachusetts to find this form of the song, with the even more desired air and finally located our O-text. The form she learned from Elizabeth Foster's sister is entirely different. The only fragment of the Tiranti-form previously reported from Maine is the following, found by Mr. Barry, which came from a New Brunswick source.
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In Child J, a version of the"Croodlin Doo," form of the ballad, from Motherwell's MSS, we have the stanza:
"What did ye wi the wee fishie, my bonnie wee croodlin dow?"
"I boild, it in a wee pannie; oh mak my bed, mammy, now!"
In an extended study of "Lord Randall in New England"' it JAFL, XVI, 258-263, and XVIII, 195-207, 303, P.B. has given many examples, with an astounding variation of names for the titular character, who is everything from Fair Elson to Tyranty, Sweet William, Terence, Orlando, Philander(Fileander). Texts from the West and South have an equally large variety, with Durango leading the field for oddity. Our four versions, I, J, K, L, were recorded by Mr. Barry in Maine, or derived from former residents.
Professor Child notes, Vol. I, p. 152, that in Italy there is a printed reference to this ballad which dates to 1629, and there is another one of the date of 1658, showing that it was well known then in Italy. The Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, in her Essays in the Study of Folk-Song (1866), has a chapter on The Diffusion of Ballads." Under the heading "Lord Ronald," in Italy, she devotes almost nine pages to the discussion of this ballad, and gives a version of seventeen stanzas, literally translated, which was taken down in Como:
"What supper gave she you?
My son, beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,
What supper gave she you?"
"I supped on roasted eel;
O lady mother, my heart is very sick;
I supped on roasted eel,
Alas, alas, that I should have to die."
This ballad, known as L'Avelenato, that is, "The poisoned Man," is still sung in Italy. An excellent version, taken down
in 1915, is printed in JFSS. p. 242-249.
This corresponding stanzas of this Italian ballad are remarkably close to the English texts. "Before parting with Lord Ronald," says the countess, "it should be noticed that the song clearly traveled in shape, not simply as a popular tradition; and that its different adapters have been still more faithful to the shape than to the substance . . . Some crime of the middle ages may have been the foundation of the ballad; on the other hand, it is conceivable that it formed a part of the enormous accumulation of literary odds and ends brought to Europe from the east by pilgrims and crusaders. Stories that, as we know them seem distinctly medieval, such as Boccaccio's 'Falcon,' have been traced to India. . . .We cannot arrive at the minor question of whether Lord Ronald made his appearance first in England or in Italy. There was a steady migration into England of Italian literature, literate, and probably also illiterate, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. The English ballad- singers may have been as much on the lookout for a new orally communicated song from foreign parts as Chaucer was for a poem of Petrarch's, or a tale of Boccaccio's (Edition in Everyman's Library pp. 179-180).
It is reasonably safe to assert that, of all the English ballads, "Lord Randall, holds in the United States the leading position, as regards the extent of purely traditional currency. "Barbara Allen" and "Lord Thomas," are no doubt, known to more folk-singers, yet it cannot be said that their popularity is due solely to tradition, since both have been many times reprinted in pocket songsters. on the other hand, we know of no American broadside or songster text of "Lord Randall." The influence on the tradition of this ballad, of the versions in the Scots Musical Museum and Smith's 'Scottish Minstrel' is to be discounted as negligible.
Of the Maine texts, G, J, K, and probably also C, are derived from Irish tradition. The extent to which Irish singers are responsible for the distribution of ballads of the Child type is an open question. Our own researches lead us to the conclusion that such ballads are far better known to Irish singers than is generally supposed. In the Irish form of "Lord Randall," a distinct type, in which the hero is not named, but is usually called "my own pretty boy," we have a characteristic feature by which to organize it. The earliest record of the "pretty boy" form goes back to the middle of the last century, since air No. 330, in the Complete Petrie Collection, from P. W. Joyce, bears the title, "Where are you all the day, my own pretty Boy" Child's H-text, "where are you all day, my own pretty boy?" is a Kerry version of about 1868. There is also Gaelic text of the ballad, published by Douglas Hyde, as recited by an aged pauper. (Eriu II, 77 ff.)
The Maine L text serves to throw some light on the antiquity of the American tradition of "Lord Randall." The Child I texts, that is, the Tiranti-group, have apparently come from a common source. The oldest of them is the one sung by Elizabeth Foster. The feature of the Tiranti-group is the substitution of the grandmother, or in one of Child's texts, an uncle, for the false lady-love. Child has seven texts of this form, in which the young man, or child, is called "Tiranti, my son."
In the Barry collection are about ten versions which have the name Tyranty, Taranty, Tyranting. etc., of which all but two attribute the poisoning to the grandmother. Of these two, which make the false true-love give the poison, one of them, "Teronto," from Lynn, Mass', has been "printed in JAFL XVIII, 199. The other, "Tyranna," the L-text of the present volume, came originally from New Brunswick, but was sung in Maine before 1870. It is a safe assumption, of course, that at
some point in the oral tradition of the version which was the common ancestor of Child I texts and other recorded Tyranty texts in which the grandmother is the poisoner, the figure of the grandmother was substituted for the false lady-love. While it cannot be proved that Elizabeth (Soper) Foster learned, in Maine, the text printed by Child as I a, the possibility that she did, is not excluded. The substitution of the grandmother for the false lady-love may have been made at the close of the eighteenth century-possibly not in Maine, for the "grandmother" texts are characteristic of the southern New England tradition of the ballad.
The importance of the Maine L-text is now clear. That is, it belongs to a stage in the tradition of the ballad which antedates the substitution of the grandmother for the false true-love.
Moreover, it helps to explain the name Tiranti" which child supposed to be a corruption of "Lord Randall." The many forms, "Tarranty, Tiranti, Teranis," etc., are all corruptions of "Tyrannus", The name is rare-- it is mentioned, in The New England, Historic Genealogical Registrar, (1907), LXI, 285.
The oldest melody to "Lord Randall," printed in Johnson's Musical Museum, is a Scots air, of which traditional variants have survived. in America. This air, however, is giving way to an Irish melody, one form of which is sung to the familiar comic ballad "Vilikins and Dinah." Three variants of the Irish air are included in Greig's melodies to "Lord Randall" (Last Leaves, p. 14). It is to this air, in one form or another, that the ballad is commonly sung in Maine. Mrs. McGill's melody, too, recently imported from Scotland, is a Mixolydian variant of the "Vilikins" air, still another version of the same air, from Missouri, is printed by Professor Kittredge, in JAFL, XXX, 290, as set to a text 'Lord Randal," described as "genuinely traditional, and running stanza for stanza with Child's A." The earliest record of a variant of "Vilikins" air, sung to a text of 'Lord Randal" (of the Irish, or "pretty boy" type), was made in county Limerick, Ireland, by Joyce, about 1848 (old Irish Folk-Music and, songs, pp. 394-395).
Mrs. Susie Carr Young of Brewer, who knows both "Lord Randal" and "Vilikins and Dinah," sings the latter of the two songs to the following melody, recorded by Mr. George Herzog.
[music upcoming]
In this form of the melody, the arrangement of the phrases conforms to the formula A, B, B, C. A closely related variant, in which, however, the fourth phrase has been replaced by a repetition of the first, is sung by Mr. Lawrence T. Smyth of Bangor to a comic ballad "The Prince Edward Island Boys."
Mrs. Sarah Black's air to "Lord Randall" is a variant of Mrs. Young's air to "Vilikins," which is undergoing traditional change. We have had the good fortune to catch these changes in the actual process of formation. As she sings the ballad, the music of the first stanza impresses the hearer as being different from that of the remaining stanzas.
The reason for this is easy to account for. The air, as set to the first stanza, is strikingly like Mrs. Young's "Vilikins" air, --in fact, the first phrase in each is note for note the same, while the fourth phrase in Mrs. Black's air differs only very slightly from the corresponding phrase in Mrs. Young's. When, however, Mrs. Black sings stanzas 2 ff. of "Lord Randall," she admits a change in the air analogous to that which has affected Mr. Smyth's version of the "Vilikins" melody, except that in her version, as sung to the second' and subsequent stanzas of "Lord Randall," it is the fourth phrase which has crowded out the first, so that, as the first and fourth phrases are thus become identical, the air conforms the more closely to the pattern of the strict "come-all-ye"
type, graphically represented by the formula A, B, B, A.
A third stage of the evolution of the Maine music to "Lord Randall" is seen in Mr. Robbins's air to this ballad. As Mrs. Robbins sings it, the form of the air is closely similar to Mrs' Blackts second form' showing identity of the first and fourth phrases, so that it, too, conforms to the strict "come-all-ye" structure. Lastly, the air to which Mrs. Young herself sings "Lord Randall,"
though superficially, at least, it is apparently not related to any form of the "Vilikins" air, is yet in parts dimly reminiscent of it. Even if any remote connection with it, as a variant of "Vilikins" be too much to assume, the possibility that Mrs. Young's "Lord Randall" has at some time in tradition been crossed with the "Vilikins" air is not to be ruled out of consideration.
In the foregoing summary of the facts in the case, no implication has been intended which might point toward an actual theory to account for the origin of the melodic differences, as observed. Yet it is not too rash, perhaps, to hazard such a theory. The change in the form of the air, as Mrs. Black sings it, occurs in the singing of the second stanza of the ballad. The fourth phrase of the first form of the air, sung to the first stanza, is identical with the first phrase of the second form, as sung to the second, and following stanzas. It would, then, seem quite natural that the change should have come about simply through repetition of
the final phrase of the first form, as the opening phrase of the second. The correctness of this hypothesis belongs, of course, to the domain of music-psychology. Nevertheless, as a working theory, it may help to account for the differences observed between the two forms of the Irish air of the "come-all-ye" type, and perhaps lead to proof that the variants represented by the formula A, B, B, C are really the earlier, whereas the variants of the A, B, B, A norm are later, due to traditional re-creation, in some such manner as has here been suggested.
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We are now able to complete the history of Child's I-text of "Lord Randal," one variant of which, Child I a, was given to Child in 1881 by Mrs. Lily Foster (Pope) Wesselhoeft (referred to by Mr. Turner as Lily Pope), a granddaughter of Elizabeth (Soper) Foster, and a great-granddaughter of Justus Soper. Mr. Turner and Mrs. Susie Carr Young are cousins, both descended through Mary (Soper) Carr, from the same Justus Soper, who married Elizabeth Viles, in Orland, where their third child, Elizabeth, was born in 1789.
There is scarcely any doubt that "Tyranty, My Son" is originally a specifically Maine form of "Lord Randall." We have in our L-text, still earlier stage of its history, with the name Tarannus, only slightly disguised, and the false true-love as the poisoner. "Tyranty" is simply a translation of "Tyrannus." The many versions of the ballad in which the grandmother is found, all go back to this single source as the combined history of text and melody prove beyond a shadow of doubt. The melody, as sung by Mr. Turner, is the original Soper air, long supposed to have been lost. lt is closely related to six other published melodies, all variants of the same air (p. 8., in JAFL, XVIII, 204-205; XXIII,443), four of them sung to texts which have both the grandmother and the name "Tyranty." In the fifth, the name is "Wrentham," but the text is otherwise almost identical with stanzas 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, of Child I a, the earliest recorded variant of the Soper text. The sixth text, from Charlestown, N. H., is a mere fragment-- the child is "Orlando," and the poisoner is not specified. Since, however, the melody is very nearly identical with that to which a Pomfret, Conn., text of "Taranty" (JAFL, XVIII, 203) was sung, it must have belonged to the same group. A Newbury, Vt., text names the child Fileander (Philander), (JAFL, XVIII, 207), and differs from other texts of this type in the bequest of "hell-fire and damnation," to the grandmother. "Tyranty" was sung in Dutchess County, New york, about the middle of the last century, to a variant of the (Vilikins, air, the result, no doubt, of the crossing of the two traditional strains of "Lord Randall."
The reason for the intrusion of the grandmother, in place of the false true-love, has puzzled students of the ballad, yet the explanation is very simple.
The secondary form of "Lord Randall," that is, "The Croodlin Doo" (Child J, K c, L, M, N, O), presents the situation of a child, questioned by the mother, telling how his stepmother has poisoned him with "wee fishies," or "four footed fish." There is no absurdity, from the point of view of folklore, of mother and stepmother appearing in the same ballad. "The Croodlin Doo" furnishes a unique example in English, of the spirit of a dead, mother returning to comfort a child abused by a cruel stepmother. In the Danish ballad Szvend Dyring, the dead mother returns to care for her neglected children, and to warn their father not to let it happen again. The popular belief, too, in such a form of spirit return, was attested by Jamieson for Dumfriesshire. Yet neither Child, who knew Szvend Dyring, and hoped to find an English parallel to it, nor Wimberley, who quotes the Danish ballad, and refers to Jamieson's "Northern Antiquities" (Folk Lore in English and Scottish Ballads, pp. 265 ff.), discovered the presence of the same motif in "The Croodlin Doo."
Yet the "way of the folk," as it happens, is not always the way of the folklorist. As the belief in ghosts faded, or perhaps for other reasons, the apparent absurdity of the situation in the ballad made necessary the finding of a villain who would not have to wait for the mother's death. Child K a, K b (first printed by Chambers in 1826) and R (Pitcairn's MSS) give the folk-rationalization: all three are Scottish, and have introduced the grandmother in place of the stepmother. On the other hand, a text in the Findlay MSS (Child Y, 299), keeps the step-mother, and replaces the mother by the grandmother. That the grandmother, conceived of as a witch, perhaps needing a corpse for necromancy; should have been introduced into a Scottish form of the ballad, it is not unnatural, for it was in Scotland where the belief in witches long lingered, and where, in 1660-63, a severe persecution took place (Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England, pp. 287, 312).
"Tyranty, My Son," in which the grandmother, for the only time appears in place of the true-love in "Lord Randall," has been influenced in its form by "The Croodlin Doo." No text of "The Croodlin Doo" has been found in America, yet we have the combined evidence of two of our texts, namely, N and O, to prove that some of the early settlers of New England must have known it.
E. [Dear Wilson, My Son]- Sent in September, 1926, by Mrs. Annie V. Marston of West Gouldsboro, who learned it in 1867 of Adin B. Judkins of Orneville, Piscataquis County.
1 "O where have you been, dear Wilson, my son?
O where have you been, my own dearest one?"
"I've been to see my sweetheart, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart and fain would lie down."
2 "O what is the matter, dear Wilson, my son?
O what is the matter, my own dearest one?"
"I am poisoned, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart and fain would lie down."
3. "O what did she give you to eat, dear Wilson, my son?
what did she give you to eat, my own dearest one ?"
"Eels from the hedges, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and fain would lie down."
4 "What do you will to your father, dear Wilson, my son?
What do you will to your father, my own dearest one?"
"House and land, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and fain would lie down."
5 "What do you will to your mother, dear Wilson, my son?
What do you will to you mother, my own dearest one?"
"My jewels and love, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and fain would lie down."
6 "What do you will to your brother, dear Wilson, my son ?
What do you will to your brother, my own dearest one?"
"My dogs and guns, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and fain would lie down."
7 "What do you will to your sister, dear Wilson, my son?
What do you will to your sister, my own loving one?"
"My ring, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and fain would lie down."
8 "What do you will to your sweetheart, dear Wilson, my son?
What do you will to your sweetheart, my own dearest one?"
"Hell-fire and brimstone, mother; make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and fain would lie down'"