Demon Lover in New England?- John Minear
[This is info and analysis from John Minear 2011-2012 found in the Mudcat Discussion Forum. The extended thread includes commentary and information (from Clinton Heylin and others) as well as many text versions. It's divided into ten segments (posts) and I've added two more: ]
Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Part I
I want to offer some analysis of the versions of the "House Carpenter" collected in the Northeastern part of the United States that we have found so far. At this time I am not including the Canadian versions. I am also excluding the version known as "The Banks of Claudy", collected from Ellen Sullivan of Springfield, Vermont, since it is so different from all of the others, and I have already posted Heylin's analysis of it. And, I am excluding, for now, the version collected from Edith Ballenger Price, of Newport, Rhode Island, entitled "The Daemon Lover." This, too, is a unique version, different from all of the others. I will discuss it in a different context later.
In addition to the Sullivan and Price variants, there are two other versions that are significantly different enough from the rest to deserve mention. One is the version entitled "The Young Turtle Dove", from a manuscript that belonged to Mrs. John Luther of Pittsburg, New Hampshire. The other is the version from Alec Couchey of Essex, New York, as sung by Lee Knight, entitled "The Gypsy Daisy", which combines "The House Carpenter" with "The Gypsy Davey." I will be including both of these variants in my discussion.
There are also a number of fragments or incomplete versions in what we have found so far. They are as follows: the version from Susie Carr Young, of Brewer, Maine; the one from Celia Kelter, of Tabasco, New York; the one from Mrs. Wales of Burlington, Vermont; the one from Maynard Reynolds of Pittsburgh, New Hampshire; the one from Clarence Cutting from the Adirondack region of New York, and the one from Jennie Devlin, from either Gloucester, Massachusetts or perhaps New Jersey. I will include all of these fragments in my discussion.
I will also include the broadside printed by De Marsan, which I assume is the same one printed by "J. Andrews" in New York City in 1857. We don't know the sources for the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, but since it was printed in New York, it seems to me to be a part of our collection, as well as one of the possible sources for the others that we have found.
All of our versions have been collected roughly within a hundred years of the printing of the Andrews/De Marsan broadside. It predates all of our versions and certainly could have been around for all of our singers to draw on as a source. I want to try to see which of our versions seem most dependent upon the broadside and which ones differ from it the most. All of them follow the same general narrative of the broadside, but with some significant individual variations. None of our versions correspond exactly with the broadside. Each one differs in some significant way.
I have not been able to see any geographical tendencies among our versions. The "state boundaries" seem irrelevant, so I have decided to ignore them. Also the distance from New York City as the source of the broadside does not seem relevant. We don't have enough samples from Canada to be able to tell about any influence from that direction. So I am treating our versions strictly on a regional basis within the northeastern part of the United States.
Part II
There are a number of themes that do not show up in the versions of "The House Carpenter" that we have "collected" on this thread. These are themes that are common to the older versions from the British Isles. This includes the "Andrews/De Marsan" broadside, and excludes the Sullivan and Price versions.
There is no mention of any "ghost" or of "the Devil". As far as I can tell there are no hints at anything supernatural or diabolical. There is no mention of any "broken vows" or any punishment for the woman because she has broken previous vows. The person who steals away the House Carpenter's wife has "come from the sea," "come across the sal', salt sea," has "crossed the sea," has "crossed the salt sea wave," has "come across the sea," has "returned from the salt, salt sea," has "come across the deep blue sea," has "just returned from the salt, salt sea" (Willard). George Edward's version says,
"It's pretty well met to my own true love,
It's pretty well met," says he,
"It's pretty well met to my own true love,
Long time I've waited for thee, O thee,
A long time I've waited for thee.
This seems to indicate that the one absent (at sea) has "waited" a "long time". This is the only mention of time in any of the versions. There is no mention of "seven years" in any of them.
There is no mention of anybody's actual name in any of these versions. And finally, none of these Northeastern versions, including the broadsides, have the two verses about seeing the hills of "heaven" and "hell", which are so frequent in the Southern versions. There is no mention of the ship being destroyed by it's owner at sea. In every case it sinks because of natural causes.
There is no use of older English words, such as "league", or any signs of Scottish dialect in any of these versions. George Edwards does make reference to "pounds" in a verse that is unique to him and seems to have come from some other song:
"But if I was worth ten thousand pounds,
So freely I'd give it to thee
If I could once more go on yonder shore
My two [three] little babes to see, O see,
My two [three] little babes to see."
Edwards' version is somewhat anachronistic throughout. Two of the versions, from Mancour (VT) and Degreenia (CT), mention "the sweet Dundee." But it is impossible to know why and whether this reference came with the ballad or from other associations, since the names associated with this particular verse are very diverse. None of the versions refer to "the banks of sweet Italy." And none of them refer to "white lilies at the bottom of the sea."
Part III
We are looking at 15 more or less complete versions, plus 6 fragments of "The House Carpenter" from the Northeastern region of the U.S. One of these is the "Andrews/De Marsan" broadside, printed in New York/Philadelphia in 1857/1860. I want to turn my attention now to trying to see what influence this broadside might have had on the ballad in this region. As I mentioned before, there are no exact reproductions of the broadside.
I want to begin by noting a couple of differences from the broadside version that are found widespread throughout the Northeast. In the third verse, the broadside has the line
"I will take you where the grass grows high,"
Out of the 21 versions represented, 14 of them have
"the grass grows GREEN" (or "greener" in the Cutting version)
These are Cornwright NY, Couchey NY, Willard NY, Cutting NY, Johnson ME, Reynolds ME/NH, Moses NH, Luther NH, Richards NH, Fish NH, Merrill NH, George VT, Mancour VT, and Degreenia CT. As can be seen, they are spread all over the region.
A second difference of wording comes at the end of the fourth verse. The broadside has
"And keep my from misery."
Out of the 21 versions represented, 11 have "SLAVERY" instead of "misery." They are Cornwright, Kelter, Couchey, Willard, Cuttng and Edwards of NY, Moses, Richards, Fish, and Merrill of NH, and George of VT.
The fact that these two wording differences are so widespread and so consistent suggests an alternative source, especially with regard to "misery"/"slavery", which are not really synonyms. It is curious why "slavery" would be preferred, and perhaps an interesting commentary on the situation of women in that culture (?). Grass growing "green" seems a more natural image than grass growing "high", perhaps suggesting that "green" was at least the more popular version, if not the more "original" or earlier version.
Part IV
In addition to a preference for "green" grass and "slavery", there are a number of other differences from the Andrews/De Marsan broadside that show up in these Northeastern versions. One of these is the repetition of the last line or two of a verse used as a refrain. This shows up in seven of the twenty-one versions: Edwards NY, Cornwright NY, Johnson ME, Reynolds ME/NH, Luther NH, George VT, Mancour VT.
Another difference is the addition of the verse that refers to the lady dressing up and parading her riches. An example is from Sarah Willard's version from 1869 in NY:
She dressed herself in rich array
And riches to behold
And every street that she passed through
She showed her glittering gold.
Sometimes she dresses in "scarlet red " (twice from NH, Moses and Richards).
In one version, the "House Carpenter" becomes the "Ship's Carpenter" (Fish NH), and in another version, both "House Carpenter" and "Ship's Carpenter" are mentioned (Edwards NY)
In four of the versions (Cornwright NY, Johnson ME, Fish NH, and George VT), the first two verses of the broadside are conflated into one verse. The broadside has:
"Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met," cried he
"For I've just returned from the Salt Sea,
All for the love of thee."
"I might have married the King's daughter, dear,"
"You might have married her," cried she,
"For I am married to a House Carpenter,
And a fine young man is he."
These four versions have something equivalent to Mrs. Cornwright's version:
"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid."
"Not so very well met," said she,
"For I am married to a house-carpenter,
And he is good to me."
In four of the versions, there is a preference for "pretty fair maid" instead of "my own true love" (Johnson ME, Fish NH, George VT, Mancour VT). Both phrases seem to be something like stock ballad phrases, but are different in meaning, perhaps reflecting two different sources.
Two of the versions begin with the verse "I might have married the king's daughter fair," And in five of the versions, there is the addition of a reproach in response to this bragging about having turned down an offer of marriage to a "King's daughter":
"If you could have married a king's daughter fair,
I'm sure you are much to blame,
This is found in Moses NH, Luther NH, Richards NH, Merrill NH, and Mancour VT.
Instead of "What have you got to keep me upon" in the fourth verse of the broadside, three of the versions have "What have you there to ENTERTAIN me on/with" (Johnson ME, Fish NH, George VT).
Two versions have reference to "three ships loaded down with gold" (Moses NH, Degreeenia CT).
Only one of the twenty versions other than the broadside has the phrase "On the banks of the old Tennessee." Curiously enough this is the fragment from Jennie Devlin.
Four of the versions have "sweet Willie" (Willard NY, Reynolds ME/NH, Luther NH, Merrill NH) and five of them have "sweet valley" (Cornwright NY, Johnson ME, Richards NH, Fish NH, George VT). The repetition of these similarities suggests other sources or influences than the broadside.
In five of the versions, the lady says that indeed she is mourning for her house carpenter and her baby (Cornwright NY, Johanson ME, Fish NH, George VT, Wales VT). The broadside says that she is only weeping for her "sweet little babe."
While the broadside says that the ship went down when it "struck a rock and sprung a leak." Six of the versions have some variation on "When a hole in the ship it sprang a leak," (Johnson ME, Cornwright NY, Fish NH, George VT, Mancour VT, Wales VT).
Thirteen of the versions, including the fragments, omit any reference to a curse at the end of the ballad.
Part V
Which of our versions from the Northeast come closest to matching the "Andrews/De Marsan" broadside? I have already mentioned the Devlin version, which is the only one to contain the phrase "on the banks of the old Tennessee." It is a fragment, with only four verses, and one could say that all four verses match up with the broadside. The "Salt Sea" has become "the deep blue sea." I would appreciate clarification on the geographical context for the Devlin version. I have not been able to resolve that issue.
Aside from Jennie Devlin's song, I think that there are only two other versions that come very close to the broadside. One is the Sarah Willard manuscript from Moriah Center NY, written in 1869. The other is the version published by Flanders from Oscar Degreenia of West Cornwall CT.
I am going to go through the Willard and Degreenia versions and compare them verse by verse with the Andrews/De Marsan broadside. The broadside comes first, and then Willard as our oldest written manuscript, and then Degreenia. I have put some of the word differences in CAPITALS.
"Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met," cried he
"For I've just returned from the Salt Sea,
All for the love of thee."
Well met, well met my own true love
Well met, well met, said he
I have just returned from the salt, salt sea
All for the love of thee
"I have came across the sea, salt sea;
It was all for the sake of thee.
---
"I might have married the King's daughter, dear,"
"You might have married her," cried she,
"For I am married to a House Carpenter,
And a fine young man is he."
Willard omits this verse.
"I might have married a king's daughter FAIR
And she would married me."
"For I have married a house carpenter
And I think he's a very nice man."
---
"If you will forsake your House Carpenter,
And go along with me,
I will take you where the grass grows high,
On the banks of old Tennessee."
If you will forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me
I will take you where the grass grows GREEN
On the Banks of the SWEET WILLIE?
"If you will LEAVE your house carpenter
And COME along with me,
I'll take you there where the grass grows GREEN
On the banks of the SWEET DUNDEE."
---
"If I forsake my House Carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What have you got to keep me upon,
And keep me from misery."
If I'll forsake my house carpenter
And go along with thee
Have you anything to MAINTAIN me upon
And to keep me from SLAVERY.
"If I should leave my house carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you there to SUPPORT me on
Or keep me from misery?"
---
Says he, "I've got six ships at sea,
All sailing to dry land,
One hundred and ten of your own countrymen,
Love, they shall be at your command."
One hundred ships I have at sea
A-making for dry land
With two hundred and ten bold jolly seamen
All shall be at your command
"I have three ships ALL LOADED WITH GOLD
And sailing for dry land,
And a hundred and twenty sailor boys
Will be at your demand."
---
She took her babe upon her knee,
And kissed it one, two, or three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling sweet babe,
And keep your father's company."
She called her babe up on her knee
And she kissed it two and three
Said stay at home my sweet little babe
And keep your dad company
She picked her baby up INTO HER ARMS
And give him kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home with your pap
For he IS GOOD company."
---
Willard inserts the following verse at this point:
She dressed herself in rich way
In riches to behold
And every street that she passed through
She showed her glittering gold
---
They had not sailed four weeks or more,
Four weeks or scarcely three,
When she thought of her darling sweet babe at home,
And she wept most bitterly.
She had not been at sea two weeks
I am sure it was not three
BEFORE THIS MAID BEGAN TO WEEP
And she wept most bitterly
They had not sailed a week an' a half,
I'm sure it was not three,
BEFORE THIS MAID FOUND FOR TO WEEP,
And she wept most bitterly.
---
Says he, "Are you weeping for gold, my love,
Or are you weeping for fear,
Or are you weeping for your House Carpenter,
That you left and followed me."
Is it for my gold that you weep
Or is it for MY STORE
Or is it for the house carpenter
That you NEVER CAN SEE ANY MORE
"Is it for gold that you do weep,
Or is it for MY STORE?"
[Degreenia conflates this verse with the next one.]
"It's for my darling little babe
THAT I NEVER WILL SEE ANY MORE"
---
"I am not weeping for gold," she replied,
"Nor am I weeping for fear,
But I am weeping alone for my sweet little babe,
That I left with my House Carpenter."
Tis not for your gold that I weep
It is not for your STORE
But its ALL FOR THE LOVE of my sweet little babe
THAT I NEVER CAN SEE ANY MORE.
---
At this point, the broadside inserts the following verse, missing from all other versions:
"Oh, dry up your tears, my own true love,
And cease your weeping," cried he,
"For soon you'll see your own happy home,
On the banks of old Tennessee."
---
They had not sailed five weeks or more,
Five weeks or scarcely four,
When the ship struck a rock and sprung a leak,
And they were never seen any more.
She had not been on the sea three weeks
I am sure it was not four
Before that ship she sprung a leak
And she sank to rise no more
They had not sailed three weeks and a half,
I'm sure it was not four,
When A HOLE BROKE OUT IN THE BOTTOM OF THE SHIP
And their bones was heard no more.
[Notice the differences in the last line.]
---
A curse be on the sea-faring men,
Oh, cursed be their lives,
For while they are robbing the House Carpenter,
And coaxing away their wives.
Bad luck Bad luck to sea fare MAID
And cursed be all your lives
For robbing of the House Carpenter
And STEALING away his wife
The Degreenia version does not have the curse.
---
There is certainly enough agreement between both the Willard and Degreenia versions with the broadside to suggest that they were at least influenced by the broadside tradition, if not derived from it. However, there is always the question as to whether or not all three of these versions (including the broadside) may have come from an earlier source. It is also interesting to note the agreements between Willard and Degreenia that disagree with the broadside, suggesting other common sources. And finally it is important to notice what is unique to the broadside, and what is unique to Willard and to Degreenia, again suggesting multiple sources. Certainly Willard shares with other earlier sources the verse about dressing up in riches and the use of "slavery." Degreenia shares with other versions the use of "Dundee" and "I have three ships all loaded with gold." He also omits the opening two lines about "Well met..." and the ending "curse verse."
Part VI
I now want to look at five more of our versions from the Northeast that seem to have been influenced by the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, or the tradition underlying that broadside, as well as some other distinct traditions. These five versions come from Sidney Luther NH, Belle Richards NH, Ruth Moses (from her father)NH, Orlon Merrill NH, and slightly different from Alice Mancour of VT. The first four, all from NH are the most similar to each other.
Two of them, (Luther and Richards) begin with the familiar "Well met, well met my own true love" line from the broadside. The version from Mancour in VT also begins with this line but has "my pretty fair maid." The other two (Moses and Merrill) begin with the second verse from the broadside, "I might have married a king's daughter fair." The other two NH versions also have this verse. All four of the NH versions share in common the response of "If you could have married a king's daughter fair, I'm sure you are to blame," which is not a part of the broadside. The Mancour version, while structured a bit differently does have the line "You are very much to blame." Clearly this response comes from some other source than the broadside tradition.
All five of these versions share in common, over and against the broadside version, the phrase "the grass grows GREEN" (instead of "high"). Two have "sweet Willy," one has "sweet Valley," one has "Sweet Dundee," and one has "sweet Guerlee." Of course the broadside has "old Tennessee."
Three (Richards, Merrill, Moses) have "slavery" instead of "misery." Interestingly enough, both the Luther version and the Mancour version omit this verse, and the following verse about what she will be offered if she leaves. Moses, Richards and Merrill then have some version of the "dressed herself up" in riches verse. Both Moses and Richards share the line "She dressed herself in scarlet red." Merrill simply has her in a "stylish dress." We have noticed before that this verse surely comes from a different and probably early source.
All five of these versions have in common the lines "Is it for my gold you weep, or is it for my STORE?" And the answering verse, which is omitted by both Mancour and Moses, also has the word "store." The broadside has "Or are you weeping for fear," etc. The broadside has "But I am weeping for my sweet little babe, That I left with my House Carpenter." Moses, Merrill and Richards all have some variation on "That I never shall see any more." The other two omit this verse entirely.
All five versions have the ship springing a leak but with no mention of striking a rock as in the broadside. And the four NH versions end with some form of a "curse." Three of them curse "all sea men" and Moses curses "all womankind, Likewise all men alive,..." The VT version from Mancour omits the curse. In all, only seven of our versions end with a form of curse. In addition to the four mentioned here and the one mentioned in the previous section from Willard, both Edwards and Couchey of NY have "curse verses."
So, while it may have been possible that these five versions were at least influenced by traditions going back to the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, they have obviously come under other influences as well. The commonalities would perhaps suggest a fairly stable textual tradition lying behind these differences. There were probably alternate versions already in circulation perhaps before the printing of the broadside and certainly afterwards.
Part VII
There is another group of four versions plus a fragment that I want to consider. They are from Elmer George VT, Lena Bourne Fish NH, Allen Johnson ME, and Mrs. Cornwright NY, along with the fragment from Mrs. Wales VT, learned from her grandmother, Mrs. Bissell. The four complete versions have an amazing number of things in common, which are not in the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, definitely suggesting some other source.
Setting aside the Wales fragment for moment, the other four all begin with almost identically the same verse:
"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid,"
"No so very well met," said she,
"For I am married to a house carpenter,
And a very fine man is he;
Fish has "a ship carpenter" instead of "a house carpenter." What is interesting about this is not only that they all have the same wording, but that this is a conflation of the opening two verses from the broadside. They also use "pretty fair maid" instead of "my own true love."
Three of the four versions, from Cornwright, Johnson, and George use a repetition of the last two lines of each verse as a refrain, which is somewhat unusual in ballad singing. This is also true for the versions by Reynolds ME/NH, Luther NH, and Mancour VT.
All four versions have "the grass grows GREEN, On the banks of a sweet VALLEY." Three of them (Johnson, George, and Fish) use the word "entertain" in the third verse, "What have you there to ENTERTAIN me on/with?" And three of them (George, Fish, and Cornwright) use the word "slavery" instead of "misery". Johnson has "And keep me company." Three (George, Fish and Johnson) have almost identical fourth verses:
"Oh, I have ships all in the bay [Johnson has "a thousand ships"]
And plenty more upon land,
Five hundred and ten of as fine young men.
They are all at your command." [all four agree on these last two lines]
There is strong agreement from all four versions on the next verse about "kisses three." Then two of the versions (George and Johnson) have almost identical versions of the "riches" verse that they insert at this point:
She went upstairs to dress herself
Most beautiful to behold.
'Twas then she walk-ed the streets all along,
And she shone like the glittering gold.
All four versions have almost identical accounts of the lady mourning most bitterly (Fish has "most pitifully"). They all agree on the "six weeks at sea":
She had not sailed six weeks on the sea,
Oh, no, not more than three,
Before this fair lady began for to mourn
And she mourned most bitterlee.
And the fragment from Wales has almost the same thing:
They had not sailed a month or more,
A month or scarcely three,
When she began to weep and lament
And to mourn most bitterlie.
All four versions and the fragment agree on the next verse about "weeping for gold':
"O do you weep for gold, " he said,
"Or do you weep for me,
Or do you weep for your house carpenter
That you left to come with me?"
And then, all five of these versions agree that she is weeping FOR the House Carpenter, "But I do weep for my house carpenter..." The four main versions add the baby.
All five versions have the strange line in the last verse about a hole in the ship springing a leak:
When a hole in the ship, and the ship sprang a leak (Wales)
When a hole in the ship it sprang a leak, (Johnson)
At the bottom of the ship there sprang a leak (Fish)
Before that hole in the ship sprang a leak (George)
When a hole in the ship caught a leak, (Cornwright)
And finally, none of these five versions have a curse verse. They all end with the ship going down.
When you put these five versions along side of each other they clearly look like they have a common source. All four of the main versions agree on six points that are not in the broadside version. And there is some agreement on up to ten points that are not in the broadside. It seems to me that these five versions are the strongest and most coherent evidence we have for an alternate source different from the Andrews/De Marsan broadside for this ballad in the Northeast.
Part VIII
There is one other version from the Northeast left to consider. It is the one published by Flanders from Edith Ballenger Price of Rhode Island, collected in 1945. Supposedly, she learned it " as a young girl from "a lady living in Massachusetts, whose forebears came from England." For the sake of this discussion I am going to reprint this version.
The Daemon Lover
"I've seven ships upon the sea,
Beaten with the finest gold,
And mariners to wait upon us;
All this she shall behold."
She set her foot unto the ship,
No mariners did she behold;
But the sail was o' the....
And the mast o' the beaten gold.
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only one,
When she began to weep and to mourn
and to think on her little wee son.
"Now hold ye tears, my dearest dear;
Let all your weeping be:
For I'll show you how the lilies grow
On the banks of Italee.
They hadna' been a league, a league,
A league but only two,
When she beheld his cloven foot,
From his gay robe thrusting through.
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.
"Now hold your tears, my dearest dear,
Let all your weeping be
And I'll show ye how the white lilies grow
At the bottom o' the sea."
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only four;
When the little wee ship ran 'round about
And never was seen more.
It is not hard to see how different this version is from everything else we have looked at! I have to say that I tend to agree with what Bryan Peters has said above about this version. He says that the transcription
"from Edith Price of Newport, RI, looks an awful lot like a collation from the two versions of the ballad in Motherwell's 'Minstrelsey'. If the singer did indeed give it the title 'Daemon Lover', that alone would be grounds for suspicion."
I have not gone back through all of Bronson but I think this is the only American version of this ballad to contain many of these unique characteristics. I would suggest that either it came over quite late in written form, or was appropriated directly in written form by somebody in Massachusetts. It seems suspicious to me as well. I would welcome some counter arguments. In the next post, I will put up Clinton Heylin's counter argument so you can see what he thinks about this text.
Part IX
Here is what Clinton Heylin has to say about the Price text. [a long quote!]
"Establishing the revenant nature of the former lover adds an important dimension to an otherwise mundane tale of temptation and guilt. What it does not afford is an explanation of the supernatural powers with which our 'Dæmon Lover' is endowed on his return. The final verse of the Greig-Buchan text confirms that it is the spirit of 'James Harris' that causes the ship to sink (unlike in the familiar broadside texts); that the storm is invoked by the revenant; and that the white lillies on the banks of Italy were intended to contrast with the white fishes/lillies at the bottom of the sea. Though Buchan's text does not depict the advent of the storm, Robert Scott's North Eastern text does, as do both of William Motherwell's variants, his Minstrelsy text bearing the more authentic tone:
They had not sailed a mile awa,
Never a mile but three,
When dark, dark, grew his eerie looks,
And raging grew the sea.2
Motherwell's nine-verse text appeared in the 1827 edition of his Minstrelsy, Ancient & Modern. An American text, collected from New England by the same indefatigible collector who had previously located the 'George Allis' fragment, suggests that Motherwell's text drew upon an enduring tradition. This eight-verse 'condensation', transcribed in October 1945, despite narrative holes, is an excellent text, another rare rendition to have survived in America without the debilitating input of De Marsan. It also adds an important piece to our jigsaw - the notion of the lady in the song becoming increasingly aware that her former lover is not all that he seems. In the Motherwell-Price text/s encroaching dread consumes the song long before the destruction of the ship.
Thankfully not only did one Edith Ballenger Price, from Newport, Rhode Island, recall that fine verse about "his eerie looks" but she also provided the only American text to date to contain an all-important reference to "his cloven foot." The image of the lady catching sight of 'her lover's' cloven foot is one of the most dramatic snapshots in all of popular balladry. Ms. Price says that she learnt the song from a lady whose family came from England, the only real suggestion that the 'dæmonic' version might have once had a foothold in English tradition. Comparing Ms. Price's rendition with the one in Motherwell's Minstrelsy affords an invaluable insight into how the strings of tradition can preserve the supernatural. The similarities are striking: [here follows a comparison verse by verse]
......
Perhaps one is doing Ms. Price a disservice referring to her rendition as a condensation. Her eight verses accord remarkably well with Motherwell's nine. Perhaps, as the English and American broadsides elected to start the tale in act three, some long-forgotten Scottish wag decided to take Mr. Graves at his word and begin proceedings in "the last act of the play." As it is, Motherwell's reciter and Ms. Price both start and end on the same verse and inbetween agree on all the main particulars (the absence of mariners, the banks of Italy, the cloven foot, the raging sea and a fine 'lingering' quartet that builds to its climax four miles/leagues from shore).
Indeed, the two texts - recorded a hundred and twenty five years and three thousand miles apart - correspond so well that it begs the question: could Motherwell's version, which was after all a published text, have spawned its own rivulet of tradition? I think not. Setting aside the fact that Motherwell's work remained largely unknown outside antiquarian circles (and indeed the text in question Motherwell only apologetically included as a preface for what he deemed the more authoritative version, t'wit that published by Scott), the imagery in Price's rendition is, if anything, more convincing than Motherwell's. In particular, the penultimate verse, slightly Anglicized in Motherwell, rings with an authentic Scottish brogue in Price:
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.5
I presume that our New England lady was not in the habit of using the word 'gurly' despite the fact that, when imbued with some vocal gravel, it acquires a fine onomatopoeic quality. That her recollection had an authentic basis can be confirmed by reference to page 297 of George Kinloch's manuscript:
Till grim, grim grew his countenance,
And gurly grew the sea.6
Ms. Price's version also bypasses the strange offer made by the revenant, "mariners to wait upon us" - subsequently contradicted by the lady's protestation, "woe be to the dim mariners/ that nowhere can I see!" In Ms. Price's rendition, "She set her foot unto the ship/ no mariners did she behold." Her second verse, though it finds no real parallel in Motherwell, replicates - almost word-for-word - verse nine of Scott. The absence of mariners on this spectral ship is a lovely touch, one whose disappearance (sic) from tradition is much to be mourned."
Part X
Now that we've got the versions from the U.S. in some kind of order, perhaps it would interesting to look at the two Canadian versions that we have in our "collection." One comes from Newfoundland, collected by Kenneth Peacock in 1961 from Mary Ann Galpin of Codroy, and the other one comes from Toronto, Ontario, from LaRena Clark, also 1961. She recorded her version on "LaRena Clark: A Canadian Garland," Topic 12T140.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about these two versions which they agree upon and which is different from all of our New England versions is that the woman ends her part of the story by committing suicide. Here is the verse in Clark's version:
She had not sailed on sea three weeks,
I'm sure not sailed on four,
Till overboard her fair body she threw,
And her weeping was heard no more.
And here is the Galpin version:
'Twas just a short time after that, I know,
This lady she was distracted and forlorn.
Then she soon ended her life into the sea
By jumping overboard at the height of the storm.
The Galpin version is quite developed in relation to all of our other versions and shows local reference and creativity and is in a more literary style. The story has been made "coherent" with an orderly beginning and end. The young wife of a ship's carpenter in England is seduced away from her family by a rogue from Newfoundland who promises her the good life back there. She goes with him but several days out on the return trip she begins to have major regrets. She weeps and then jumps overboard. Back in England, when the ship's carpenter learns what has happened, he "swore and tore his hair," and cursed all mariners and especially the sea captain who stole away his wife.
The Clark version is much closer to the oral traditions that underlie our New England editions. It begins with the "Well met," and ends with the curse verse. The "king's daughter" has become a "queen's daughter." And the seducer has "refused a crown of gold." There is the response about "If you could have married a queen's daughter, Then she should have married thee," which leaves out the "blame" part. He's going to take her "down where the grass grows green, On the banks of the River Dee." And she asks how he will "keep her from slavery?" In this version, the lady has "two pretty babes, for whom she weeps. While Clark's version has the overall structure of the broadside version, it has a lot of the tell-tale signs that we have been seeing before that are different from the broadside, and probably comes out of the same streams as many of the versions just over the border to south in NY, NH, VT, and ME.
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[Part XI]
And here is my best take on the "Price Version." I would be interested in your further comments.
I've been pondering the Price version of our ballad for several weeks now. I don't have anything much new to add, other than I'm a bit puzzled about why it hasn't created more discussion, since 1945! Of course I was puzzled about why the Willard copy hadn't created more of stir as well. Could one conclude that "ballad studies" are not a particularly hot item and haven't been for over half of a century?
I am not an expert in the British ballad traditions and don't know very much at all about the various manuscripts. I want to say at this point how much I miss Malcolm Douglas in these discussions! In any case, I want to try to sum up my observations on the Price version.
We know that Marguerite Olney collected this version, for Helen Hartness Flanders, from Miss Edith Ballenger (Ballinger?) Price of Newport, Rhode Island on October 23, 1945. Miss Price learned her version "as a young girl from a lady living in Massachusetts." In an introduction to another ballad in this collection, which was also obtained from Miss Price, it says she learned it " about 1910 when a small child, from the singing of a friend in Amherst, Massachusetts ...." We don't know for sure if this is the same person or an accurate dating for her "Daemon Lover," but we might assume that it is. When I can get to the library and look at some of Flanders' other books, I may be able to find out more about Miss Price and her friend from Massachusetts.
The next thing that we know about the "Price version" is that it is unique in the total collection of this ballad in North America. While the title, "Daemon Lover," shows up elsewhere, some of the details in the Price version do not show up anywhere else in North America as far as I know. Her version seems to overtly maintain not only a supernatural element, which is rare in North America, but also a diabolical element, with reference to the "cloven hoof." Here are some of the more remarkable verses:
"I've seven ships upon the sea,
Beaten with the finest gold,
And mariners to wait upon us;
All this she shall behold."
She set her foot unto the ship,
No mariners did she behold;
But the sail was o' the....
And the mast o' the beaten gold.
----
They hadna' been a league, a league,
A league but only two,
When she beheld his cloven foot,
From his gay robe thrusting through.
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.
"Now hold your tears, my dearest dear,
Let all your weeping be
And I'll show ye how the white lilies grow
At the bottom o' the sea."
----
It would seem that Price's version comes closest to the Scottish (in differentiation from the "English" or "Scotch-Irish" traditions - please forgive me if I am mangling boundaries here!) traditions of this ballad, in which the supernatural and the diabolical are most pronounced. Clinton Heylin suggests that this version, along with the one it resembles most from Motherwell, come from earlier Scottish oral tradition. Gardner-Medwin, in her article, seems to suggest that it comes directly from Scott's book. However, as Richard Mellish, above, and Clinton Heylin himself point out, the word "gurly" is not found in the Motherwell/Scott version, but in another version from the Scottish oral tradition, from Kinloch.
In fact, when you compare Price's version with the version from Motherwell, which Heylin does on pages 83-84 of his book, one sees that while there are resemblances between the two suggesting that they may indeed have a common ancestor, they are different enough from each other to say that probably the Price version is not taken from the Motherwell version. Unless it has been significantly reworked. But that suspicion raises some other questions.
So, it is surely possible that the Price version does come from Scottish tradition. Motherwell's version was published in 1827, suggesting that he got his version from the oral tradition somewhat earlier, and if Price's version comes from the same milieu, then that would date it back to the early part of the 19th century. Both Heylin and Gardner-Medwin argue that there were earlier versions than the 1858 Andrews/De Marsan broadside printing in North America and suggest that they either came from Scotland or were influenced by the Scottish versions.
However, one might immediately ask, "why are there no other surviving examples like the Price version anywhere else in North America if such versions came over from Scotland between about 1750 and 1860?" Also, we just don't know when the Price version arrived on North American shores. Price says that she learned her song from a friend whose "family came from England." When did this "English" family come over? The unspoken implication would seem to be that it was fairly recently, since otherwise, what would be the point of mentioning this in the light of the fact that many, many families had "come over from England!" While there is no evidence to support it, this seems to point to a time more recent than 1827.
There is nothing to say that a Scottish version of "The Daemon Lover" could not have been preserved in England throughout the 19th century and then brought over to the United States later. However, just as there are no surviving examples of this form of the ballad in North America other than Price's, there also do not seem to be any in England either, other than what was already in print. I may be wrong about this. But the question remains, where did it come from, and when?
We know that Miss Price was born in New Jersey and grew up there, and then went to art school in Boston. In 1910, she would have been about 13 years old. It would be so interesting to know more about this "friend" but at this point I don't. However, we do know that Francis James Child had published Part VIII (Vol. 4, Part 2 of the Dover Edition) of his THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS in Boston in 1892, about five years before Miss Price was born. Child had died a year before Miss Price's birth. But the point is that his works were certainly current and available in the Boston/Amherst/Cambridge area in 1910. It is possible that someone with a literary training and background, both of which Miss Price possessed, could have skillfully crafted a "traditional" version of an old ballad, using nothing more than Child's work itself. We all know that this is not an uncommon or necessarily undesirable practice. This could have been done by either Miss Price or her "English" friend, or her English friend's "family". If only M. Olney or H.H. Flanders had asked a few more questions!
On the face of it, the Price version does not "look" like a compilation, but like a genuine surviving version of a somewhat Anglicized Scottish variant of "The Daemon Lover', or exactly what collectors would long to have found all over North America - but didn't. Heylin even suggests that this may be " the only real suggestion that the 'dæmonic' version might have once had a foothold in English tradition."
After trying to consider all of this carefully, I find myself still on the suspicious side of the argument. Too much time had elapsed for such a neat version to all of a sudden show up in Child's backyard a few years after his death. There is too much of a literary ambience surrounding this version. And there is a total lack of any other such versions in either the U.S. or Great Britain for the possible time frames involved, especially from "oral tradition." The Price version remains a somewhat suspicious enigma for me.
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[Part XII]
In looking back over this discussion, I see that we have focused a good bit of attention on the two versions of "The House Carpenter" collected in the Northeast - both of them from the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection - which are the most "unique." Actually, neither of them was titled "The House Carpenter." One, from Ellen Sullivan, was called "The Banks of Claudy" and the other one from Edith Price, was called "The Daemon Lover." They are unique not only in relationship to all of the other versions that we have found from the Northeast, but also in relation to all of the other versions found in North America (including Canada). They are of interest because they supposedly preserve aspects of this ballad that are not found otherwise on the American side of the Atlantic, namely the supernatural and the diabolical dimensions.
However, just because both of these versions were "collected" in the Northeastern part of the United States, one from Springfield VT (Sullivan), and one from Newport RI (Price), does not mean that they are necessarily "American" versions of this ballad. In fact we know from Mrs. Sullivan and Miss Price that they were not American versions. Mrs. Sullivan learned "The Banks of Claudy" in her childhood in County Cork, Ireland. It is an Irish version of this ballad that she brought over with her to Vermont. And Miss Price learned "The Daemon Lover" from a "friend" whose family had "come over from England", and it is possibly of Scottish origin.
Neither of these two versions have much at all to do with the other versions found in New England and Canada. We can see that clearly when we compare them with the oldest version we have found which is the one from Sarah Willard, of Moriah Center NY from 1869. The Willard version stands squarely in the midst of the rest of those versions normally associated with North America.
When we look at the larger picture of the Northeastern region of America, I think that these two "unique" versions are almost entirely marginalized, and rightfully so. They do not represent early traditional variants of this ballad in this country. I am here suggesting that the Price version did not come "over from England" early on, but much later, and was limited to a single family that "brought it over" and handed it on to Miss Price.
It seems to me that the best way to understand and appreciate the remainder of the American versions found in the Northeast is to place them in the larger context of all other versions found ithroughout the United States, but especially in the Southern Appalachians. As we know, there are many. And I would imagine that the versions found "up North" are probably quite similar to those found "down South" in the Appalachians.
To undertake this kind of study is more than I can do at this point. I am not aware of any detailed analysis of this ballad in America that is very recent. I would appreciate any information that anyone might have on this. I suspect that Gardner-Medwin (1971) may be the most recent work done on the North American versions.
While I think that the versions we have found from New England and Canada definitely help us understand better the spread of this ballad in North America, I don't think that either the Sullivan or the Price versions contribute very much at all to such an understanding. The Sullivan version tells us that the ballad had found its way to Ireland and did come over to New England with a fairly recent Irish immigrant. I'm not at all sure what the Price version tells us and will not venture an opinion on that.
I understand much better now why we did not turn up any versions of this ballad in the Boston area, and especially why there were not any early versions there, due to immigration patterns and religious belief systems. It would seem that the major influence in the Northeast is the same as that down South, in other words the ubiquitous "Scotch-Irish" presence. That this traditional frame of reference undoubtedly had some other "Scottish" influence mixed in with it goes without saying. However, when and where that happened remains to be discovered, although we can assume that it took place prior to the publication of the Andrews/De Marsan broadside in 1858.
I will look forward to additional finds and information, and to discussion of the materials that we have been able to collect here.