Fair Flowers of Helio- Walsh (NL) 1930 Greenleaf A
[From Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland- Greenleaf and Mansfield 1933, version A. The two refrains follow the stanza lines. Notes by Kittredge follow.
R. Mateson 2014]
This is a widely diffused ballad, found in Nova Scotia (Mackenzie, NO.3) and in several of the United States. See Cox, No. Si Campbell and Sharp, No. 9; Davis, No. 9; Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, pp. 80-93; McGill, pp. 82-86; Fuson, pp. 59-60. Cf. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, VIII, 248 (tune); Keith, No. II. For a broadside text see Fawcett, Broadside Ballads (Osterley Park), pp. 150-53.
6. FAIR FLOWERS OF HELIO- A. Sung by Agatha Walsh, Fleur de Lys, 1930.
(THE CRUEL MOTHER, Child, No. 20)
1 There was a lady lived in New York,
Fair flowers of Helio,
She was courted of her father's clerk,
In the green hills of Helio.
2 She had two babes by this young man,
Fair flowers of Helio,
She prayed to God it would never be known,
In the green hills of Helio.
3. She took a penknife long and sharp
And pierced it through their tender white hearts.
4 Those two babes will never be known;
And she buried them under a marble stone.
5 As she was walking along one day,
She saw two babes playing with a ball.
6 "O children dear, if you were mine,
I'd dress you up in silks so fine."
7. "O mother dear, when we were thine,
You wouldn't give us time to wear coarse or fine.
8 "Heaven is high and hell is low,
And when you die, it's to hell you'll go."