Down By The Greenwood Side- Nash (NY) 1927- Barry D
[From British Ballads from Maine, version B; 1929. The date she learned this ballad is not supplied.
Barry's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
(Barry and all's notes)
BRITISH BALLADS FROM MAINE- THE CRUEL MOTHER
(Child 20)
We have found four excellent texts and two good fragments of "The Cruel Mother" in Maine. Fragment C is undoubtedly from Scotland, and, judging from the refrain, the B-text probably came from there also. One of the other texts was learned from Irish girls, but it shows no great peculiarities. Indeed, Mrs. Morse's statement that, although she heard it sung in Ireland a good many times, it was always in English and never in Gaelic, implies that the Irish form was imported from England. In Nova Scotia, Professor Mackenzie found it under the name of "The Greenwood Siding," which is closely similar to the common name for the song in Maine. Perhaps attention should be called to the fact that the people of maritime Maine and of parts of Nova Scotia are largely of the same stock. Before the American Revolution, over-populated Cape Cod sent out many bodies of emigrants to the eastward; and songs from widely separated points along the eastern coast may have come from the same village, or even the same hearthstone, on Cape Cod a century and a half ago.
The Maine texts found are sufficiently similar not to need any extended comparison with each other. Most of the variations can be accounted for as omissions. It is possible to take the stanzas we have and by arranging them in order to make one long ballad of twenty-three verses, which would not only include all our Maine texts, but all Professor Cox found in the South and several of Professor Child's texts, which are largely fragmentary. Such an arrangement, although not assuming to be the original ballad, has a working value to a collector, who can fit his fragments into place by following the tabulation: it is perhaps as justifiable a reconstruction as the creation of an extinct animal from a fossil bone.
D. "Down By The Greenwood Side." Written down by Mrs. E. C. Nash of Harrington, October, 1927, as learned in childhood from the singing of Irish girls in New York.
1 There was a lady lived in York,
All along and alone, oh,
She fell in love with her father's clerk,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh.
2 She stepped out of her father's hall,
All along and alone, oh,
Soon a sweet little babe was born,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh.
3. She took out her small penknife,
All along and alone, oh,
Soon she ended the baby's life,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh.
4 She sat up in her father's hall,
All along and alone, oh,
She saw two children playing ball,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh.
5 One was dressed in silk so fine,
All along and alone, oho
The other stood naked to the wind,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh.
6 "Babe, oh, Babe, if you were mine,
All along and alone, oh,
I'd dress you up in silk so fine,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh."
7 "Ma'am, oh, Ma'am, when I was yours,
All along and alone, oh,
You dressed gr up in bloody gore,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh."
8 "Babe, oh, Babe, it's you can tell,
All along and alone, oh,
Whether I'm fit for Heaven or Hell,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh."
9 "Seven long years digging a ditch,
All along and alone, oh,
Seven long years burning a bush,
Down by the Greenwood side."
10 "Seven long years ringing a bell,
All along and alone, oh,
And forever and ever you'll be burning in hell,
Down by the Greenwood side, oh."