Fair Florella broadside, printed by H. De Marsan, New York
by Phillips Barry
American Speech, Vol. 3, No. 6 (Aug., 1928), pp. 441-447
Vol. III AUGUST, 1928 No. 6
AMERICAN SPEECH
FAIR FLORELLA
THE ballad, "Fair Florella," or "The Jealous Lover," is traditionally current from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, southward and westward through the states, from Maine to Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming, south to Alabama. It deals with the murder of a young woman by her lover; the motive being undue jealousy. One group of versions, in which the victim's name is Pearl
Bryan, has grown up since 1897. Though long supposed to have originated in America, "Fair Florella" is based on an old-country
original, a sordid tale of seduction, murder and punishment, bearing the title: "Murder of Betsy Smith," published in the early part of the nineteenth century, by J. Livsey, Manchester, England.
The stanzas from "The Murder of Betsy Smith, " which have entered into the composition of "Fair Florella, " are as follows:
On the nineteenth day of August, this young man did repair
Unto the town of Manchester, to meet his Betsy there:
Says "Betsy dear, come, let us walk, down in the flowery grove,
And there the secret of my heart, to you I will disclose."
But, O, this wicked young man, a knife he did provide,
And all unknown to his true love, concealed it by his side:
When to the fatal spot they came, he thus to her did say:
"All on this night, within this grove, I will your life betray."
On bended knees she then did fall, in sorrow and despair:
And loud for mercy she did call: her cries did rend the air:
With clasped hands and uplift eyes, she cried, "0 spare my life,
And I never will ask of you to make me your wedded wife."
O then this wicked young man said, "No mercy I will show."
Then took the knife all from his side, and pierced her body thro'.
But she still smiling said to him, though trembling with fear,
"Oh, Thomas, Thomas, spare my life! think on your baby dear."
Twice more then with the fatal knife, he pierced her body thro,'
Her throat was cut from ear to ear, most dreadful for to view:
Her arms and hands and beauteous face, he cut and mangled so,
While down upon her lily-white breast, the crimson blood did flow.
Then soon this young man taken was, and unto prison sent,-
In rattling chains he is confined, his crime for to lament.
Until the assizes do come on, when trembling he must stand
To answer for the deed he's done, waiting the dread command.
As illustrative of the manner in which "Betsy Smith" has been recreated as "Fair Florella," I cite first, the following representative version of the later ballad, recorded in Hathorne, Mass.
Down by yon drooping willow,
Where the purple violets bloom,
There lies young Florella
Silent in her tomb.
She died not broken hearted,
Nor sickness her befell:
But in one moment parted
From those she loved so well.
One night as the moon shone brightly,
As brightly as ever it shone,
Unto her cottage gently,
Her treacherous lover came.
He said, "Come, let us wander
Through fields and valleys gay,
That undisturbed we'll ponder
Upon our wedding day."
"The woods look dark and dreary,-
Let us retrace our way:
O Willie, with no other
Would I thus care to stray.
"The woods look dark and dreary,
And I'm afraid to stray:
O Willie, I am weary,-
Let us retrace our way."
"Retrace your way, no never!
These woods no more you'll roam,-
So bid farewell forever
To parents, friends, and home."
Down on her knees before him,
She begged him spare her life:
Deep, deep into her bosom,
He plunged the fatal knife.
Her pulse it did cease beating,
Her eyes were closed in death:
"0 Willie, I'll forgive you,-"
She said with her last breath.
Come all ye pretty maidens,
A warning take this day,
Don't trust your hearts to young men,
For they will you betray.
It is to be noted that the process of borrowing and readaptation which has made "Betsy Smith" into an American ballad, is the same as that which transformed the old-country "Wittam Miller" into " Omie Wise." We should therefore, seek, as secondary evidences of the process of re-creation, traces, only, of the setting and language of "Betsy Smith," in the various texts of "Fair Florella."
Such traces are sufficiently available to show quite clearly the processes of derivation. We have, for example, in some Missouri versions of "Fair Florella," specific references to the date: "one evening last September (November);" "on Sunday evening." In most versions of "Fair Florella," the couple go walking in "gay meadows," or "fields," or "by yon sparkling bay," nevertheless, in others, the "flowery grove" of the British text has survived as "woods so gay," "dark woods," "some shady woodland." In eleven texts, the murder is committed in the woods. The pleading of the victim, and the use of the knife,-a "fatal knife" in "Betsy Smith," and in many texts of "Fair Florella," as well as the wounding of the girl's breast, specified in the "Fair
Florella" texts as her "snow-white bosom, " or "fair young bosom, " are commonplaces of both ballads. Only the names, Betsy and Thomas, of the British original have disappeared,-the heroine of the American ballad is Florella, Flo Ella, Florena, Ella, Ellen, Larilla, Aurilla, Nellie, Lillie, Lena, Abbie, Annie, Nina, Willie (sic! in a text in which the hero's name is Edward), Pearl Bryan,-while the lover bears the names Elmer, Edwin, Edgar, Edward, Edmund, William, Willie, Henry, Scot Jackson.
The final stanza of "Betsy Smith" has survived in but two texts known to me, one, published by Cox, (Folk-Songs of the South, p. 202), the other by Shoemaker (North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy, p. 57):
"Now this young man was taken, into a dungeon dark,
Death was pronounced his portion, for murdering his sweetheart."
A fragment, also, of a text of "Pearl Bryan " in the Sharp MSS. refers to the grief of Scot Jackson's mother, that her son's "first crime was a hanging one."
So much for "Betsy Smith." A second element of old country origin intruded itself into the American ballad, after it had become established as an organic whole in popular tradition.
The earliest documentary record of "Fair Florella" which has come to my notice, is from a scrap-book, compiled in the 80's or 90's in Dade County, Missouri. This version, for which, together with other Missouri material, I am gratefully indebted to Prof. H. M. Belden of the University of Missouri, is as follows:
Down by a druping willow where the violets fades in bloom there lies
my own true nellie in a dark and silent tomb. the banners wave upon
her and shrill was bugal sound till strangers came and found her
cold life less on the ground. she died not broken hearted nor sickness
caused her death but in one moment parted from the one she loved so well.
The second stanza, which, as we shall presently see, occurs in a number of other versions of "Fair Florella, " is from a song by Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839.) I here quote the full text of the song from Bayly's "Fifty Lyrical Ballads, " published in Bath, England, in 1829.
She never blamed him-never,
But received him when he came,
With a welcome kind as ever,
Though she started at his name:
But vainly she dissembled,
For whene'er she tried to smile
A tear unbidden trembled
In her blue eye all the while.
She knew that she was dying,
And she dreaded not her doom;
She never thought of sighing
O'er her beauty's blighted bloom:
She knew her cheek was alter'd
And she knew her eye was dim:
But her sweet voice only falter'd
When she spoke of leaving him.
'T is true that He had lured her
From the Isle where she was born;
'T is true He had inured her
To the cold world's cruel scorn;
But yet she never blamed him
For the anguish she had known,
And though she seldom named him-
Yet she thought of him alone.
She sighed when he caress'd her,
For she knew that they must part;
She spoke not when He pressed her
To his young and panting heart.
The banners waved around her,
And she heard the bugles sound;
They pass'd-and strangers found her
Cold and lifeless on the ground.
The song was set to music by Sir H. Bishop, and shared with other songs by Bayly, an extended popularity with the sentimental adolescent of the 30's and later lachrymose decades. It was frequently reprinted by the English broadside presses. A manuscript copy, made in Carrolton, Ark., has been found by Prof. Belden. The extent to which Bayly's song has aided in sentimentalising the "Florella" balland may be seen at a glance by examining the following quotations:
Missouri M, 11: (cf. Bayly, 2, lines 1-4.)
She knew that she was dying,
But she dreaded not her doom:
But left this world forever,
With her life just at its bloom.
Missouri O, III, lines 1-4 (and in ten other versions. Cf. Bayly 3.)
She sighed not when he pressed her
To his young and cruel heart,
But she sighed when he caressed her,
For she knew that they must part.
Missouri A, 2. (See above, and cf. Bayly, 4, lines 5-8.)
The lines about the banners and bugle, from Bayly's song, have, in a number of texts of "Fair Florella, " undergone a surprising degree of re-creation. The two Pennsylvania versions published by Shoemaker, keep the bugle, but change the banners to "willows," and "forest."
" In Cox's C text of "Pearl Bryan, " (op. cit. p. 200) the bugle remains, but the banners have become "buzzards hovering o'er her." Moreover, Cox's D, E, F, texts have respectively, the following curious alterations.
D. "White flowers growing about her, close by a mossy mound."
E. "While farmers plowing o'er her, shrill was the tempest sound."
F. "White banner floating o'er her, her thrills in triumph sound."
Lastly, the Kentucky versions have generally, "the birds sang in the morning, how awful (mournful) was their song," a change which has removed everything incongruous out of the intruded stanza. The fortunate accident, that in the case of "Fair Florella," we are enabled to make, as it were, such a laboratory study of ballad origin and growth, serves only the better to show that a comparative study of variants, applied to a large number of ballads, is the way to approach the solution of the "ballad problem." Any such study, however, which deals with ballads only as literature, and omits consideration of ballad music, will in the long run be inconclusive. Text and melody form an organic whole,-yet in each, the effects of re-creation differ markedly
in degree. A text may be re-created, re-edited, or actually re-composed, whereas a melody can change only within the limits fixed by the harmonic laws of melodic structure.
In the case of "Fair Florella, " five distinct airs are known to me. Three of these are set to single isolated versions of the ballad. The fourth has not, to my knowledge, been recorded outside of Kentucky. The fifth melody exists in ten sets, and is found from the British maritime provinces, southwest through New England, and westward to Missouri. These variants show the effects of re-creation, to a striking and instructive degree. What is more, the melody has operated also as a factor, in the re-creation of the text. The second phrase of this fifth melody, in what is probably its oldest form, bears a close resemblance to the second phrase of the melody to "Annie Laurie. " Indeed, the melody to a New Hampshire version of "Fair Florella" has this second phrase note for note identical with the second phrase of the familiar Scotch air. Now three texts of "Fair Florella" have the line "and gently fell the dew," while the following fragment has the very words of the second line of "Annie Laurie"
Beside yon drooping willow,
Where early falls the dew,
There lies fair Helen Fairbanks,
So silent in her tomb.
'-Boston Globe, March 20, 1921.
Missouri Q has "and early falls the dew, " Missouri J, "and heavy fell the dew." In Missour G, the heroine's name is "gentle Annie,"-- perhaps an additional reminiscence of Stephen C. Foster's familiar song. The intrusion of Bayly's song into the text of "Fair Florella" is not due to the effect of similarity of melody, since Bishop's music to the song bears no resemblance to any set of any air to which "Fair Florella" is sung. Nor has any trace of the influence of Bayly's poem been found in any version of the ballad, so far recorded in New England, or in the British provinces. The best guess that one can make is that, somewhere in the South, where Bayly's song had entered tradition, the similarity of rhythm, and the climatic effect of the finding of the body were responsible for the intrusion into " Fair Florella, " of certain stanzas of "She Never Blamed Him."
I will close with a prophecy. Cox has pointed out (op. cit., pp. 197, ff.) the circumstances which led to the intrusion into the ballad of "Fair Florella," of. the names Pearl Bryan and Scot Jackson. The Boston "Herald" of May 20, 1927, reports from Little Rock, Arkansas, that one Lonnie Dixon, negro, aged 17, has been sentenced to die in the electric chair on June 24, for the murder of a twelve year old child, named Floella MacDonald. The sensational aspects of the trial, the posting of armed guards in front of the court house to prevent a lynching, indicate the degree of popular excitement over the case. It is confidently
to be expected that versions of "Fair Florella" will appear, in which the murderer has become a negro.
PHILLIPS BARRY.
Cambridge, Massachusetts.