Fair Sally- Perry (NC) c.1855 Brown B
[From Brown Collection of NC Folklore; Volume 2, c.1952; Between Brown, Abrams, Cratis Williams (who published an article on this ballad in 1973), and I.G. Greer many versions of this ballad were collected. Brown published three in Volume 2 and two in Volume 4 (music). Thomas Smith of Zionville, NC was an avid collector (and singer) for Brown and later moved to Palmyra, Virginia where he and his brother R. E. Lee Smith contributed (in the early 1930s) to More Ballads by Davis. Most of the Smith's ballads were sung over sixty (or some large number) years ago by someone who is friend or a relative and the contributions are unusual or rare, making them warranted for further investigation. Caveat emptor.
This particular version seems authentic enough and fair Sally is "desperately high."
R. Matteson Jr. 2014]
90. A Brave Irish Lady [Titled after Belden 1940]
For the relation of this ballad to Child 295, 'The Brown Girl,' and for its occurrence in other collections, see BSM 111-12, and add to the references there given Virginia (FSV 44-5), Tennessee (JAFL XLV 53-4), North Carolina (FSRA 74-5), Florida (FSF 330), Arkansas (OFS I 209), Missouri (OFS I 205-8, 209-12), Indiana (BSI 164-5), Michigan (BSSM 250-1), and Wisconsin (JAFL LII 12-13). The lady is not always Irish, and even when she is she sometimes comes from London. The ballad appears to have been widely known in this country since early in the last century; the text reported from Vermont is from a local songbook of 1823, and the first of our North Carolina texts is from a manuscript of about the same date. Stall texts (e.g., that in the Brown University Library, reprinted in BBM) sometimes end happily with the man relenting, but more commonly the story ends with the death of the lovesick lady. Besides the three here described our collection has another version, without indication of source, date, or place.
B. 'Fair Sally.' Secured by Thomas Smith in 1915 from the recitation of Mrs. Peggy Perry of Zionville, Watauga county. "She heard it when a young woman nearly sixty years ago." The last two lines seem to mean that he relents and that all ends happily.
1 There was a fair lady, from London she came,
She being Fair Sally, Fair Sally by name;
2 She being so rich and desperately high,
Upon a poor boy she would scarce cast an eye.
3 'Oh Sally, oh Sally, I'm sorry,' said he,
'I'm sorry that my love and yours won't agree.
4 'For if you won't have me your own it will prove;
Perhaps your own hatred will turn into love.'
5 In five or six weeks come fast and gone
She sent for the young man she slighted with scorn.
6 And when he came in to her bedside
He said, 'Oh, dear Sally, your head or your side?'
7 'Oh, my dear lover, the right you have not guessed;
The pain that torments me now lies in my breast.'
8 'The time has now come I'll freely forgive
And grant you a while longer in this world to live.'