Drowned Man's Hand- Nesbitt (NB) 1927 Barry C
[My title. Fragment from: British Ballads from Maine: Phillips Barry, Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Mary Winslow Smyth - 1929; p.28(C). Some of Barry's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
These texts [See versions A and B] present a rather unusual version of the Scotch form, Child G. For the most part the tale runs true. Although "Scotland," is changed to "Ireland," the "begging-weed," of the original becomes a "begging-rig," and the "riding-steed" is now a "riding-stage," yet both Saints Peter and Paul are retained. The beggar's "cloutie cloak," patched and old, becomes a "diner's coat," whatever that may be, and the last two lines are different. But in the main this is a good rendering of Child G, recorded by Kinloch, who took it down "from the recitation of my niece, M. Kinnear, 28 Aug. 1926." (Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 135.) Perhaps it is even more like Child H, from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 268. so far as it goes, it is not unlike Gavin Greig's texts from the northeast of Scotland, though it lacks the first part of his best records.
The sources used by Child are exclusively Scotch, yet the ballad was known in Ireland. Mrs. Fred W. Morse of Isleford, whose childhood was spent in southeastern Ireland, says that she often heard the song sung there, and that since coming to this country she has heard it sung in Medford, Mass., by a man from Waterford, Ireland, and also by girl, both of whom obtained it from a source different from her own. When she was a child, near Waterford, two wandering minstrels, old Andy and Tommy Hearn, used to sing this song. They sang it differently, and she recalls hearing them argue long and hotly about the ballad and the right way to sing it, each being entirely sure that the other had it all wrong. Tommy played the fiddle; the jew's-harp was Andy's instrument of music. They were great wanderers and great drunkards, and they followed the harvests through England and Ireland, working just enough to get money for drink. They sang in English, Scotch, and Irish what they picked up in their travels in three countries. As a child of six years, Mrs. Morse heard them sing "Hind's Horn" and recalled that one of their chief points of difference was about Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Her grandmother used to be horrified at their quarreling so about the saints, particularly as they did it most when they were drunk on being shown a copy of Child, Mrs. Morse without hesitation picked out child A, from Motherwell, as the text the two old minstrels sang.
C. Drowned Man's Hand- Sung by Fred Nesbitt, St. Stephen, New Brunswick, October 1927. Recorded by D. A. Nesbitt.
She asked him if he got it by sea or by land,
Or if he got it by a drowned man's hand.
He said, "I neither got it by sea or by land,
And neither got it by a drowned man's hand;
"But I got it in my courting gay,
And gave it to my love on her wedding day.