False Lamkin- Hoadley (VT) 1946 Flanders E
[From Flanders; Ancient Ballads, 1961, notes by Coffin follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
Lamkin (Child 93)
Although child printed twenty-six versions of "Lamkin" and although it is still known in British-American tradition, the story of the revengeful mason who murders a woman and child because he has not been paid is much the same wherever it is found. The fact that the crime is so weakly motivated has made scholars suspect much of the plot to be lost. Phillips Barry (see JAF, LII, 70-74) offers an appealing explanation in connection with the "False Linfinn" text (Flanders B) collected in Maine. "The Linfinn" was Irish for "the white man who lives by the Stream," the outcast who was a leper forced to live alone. A cure for leprosy could be had through the blood of an innocent human collected in a silver container, and this fact offers a real motive for the crime. Barry felt that the identification of Linfinn with masonry came later, possibly because Irish masons had a recipe for making cement with blood. However, other scholars have identified the name Lamkin as a Flemish form of Lambert and noted that Flemish masons were well-known in Britain in the Middle Ages. In America, one Virginia informant noted by Arthur K. Davis in his Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), 357, claimed there had been a love affair between the lady and the mason prior to the opening of the story. Whatever the answer, the crime seems rather extreme as a retaliation for failure to pay a debt.
Flanders A has the false window built by the irate mason (Child E), and A, B, and C contain the offer of the daughter's hand as a bribe (Child F, T, X). In D1, D2, E, and F only gold is proffered. A, B, D1, D2, and F include the basin of blood, and all the Flanders texts find the false nurse or maid executed with Lamkin at the end. These points generally ally the New England tradition printed here with the Child B, C, F group and the material discussed in Barry, British Ballads from Maine, 203-6, although the Flanders H fragment, where the nurse actually lets the murderer in, recalls the Child A story. For other discussions and bibliography, start with Coffin, 94-96 (American); Dean-Smith, 83 (English); and Greig and Keith, 7l-72 (Scottish). The Flanders G text, "Tumkin" (Tom King), with its relationship to Dick Turpin legends, is interesting, if hard to explain.
All of the tunes for Child 93 are members of the same family. The Moses and Delorme tunes are slightly removed from the rest, the Delorme tune being related primarily at the first line. For melodic relationship to the entire group, see FCB4, 74-76 (a11 tunes for Child 93); Sharp 1, 202, 204, 205; EO, 59; DV, 583, No. 26 (B); BES, 201 (especially related to the Delorme tune); and GCM, 313 (distant).
E. False Lamkin. Sung by Jack Hoadley of Johnson, Vermont. H. H. F., Collector; July 22, 1946. Structure: A1 A2 B C (2,2,2,2); Rhythm C but divergent; Contour: inverted arc; Scale: major
False Lamkin's good a mason
As ever laid stone.
He built Lord Farmer's castle,
And the lord paid him none.
Says the lord to his lady,
"I am going away
So beware of False Lamkin;
Let no one betray."
"I am not 'fraid of False Lamkin
Nor any of his kin
For my doors will all be bolted
And my windows barred in."
Her doors were all bolted
And her windows barred in,
Except the kitchen window
Where False Lamkin crawled in.
He had not got the first stair
Nor the second nor the third
Before she met False Lamkin
With a glittering broadsword;
Before she met False Lamkins
With a glittering broadsword.
"Oh, spare me, False Lamkins,
Oh, spare me one hour,
And I'll give you as much gold
As you carry away."
"If you'll give me as much gold
It would stand on Yonder deck,
It will not keep the broadsword
From your lily-white neck." [1]
Daughter Betsy ran upstairs
In the garret so high;
There she saw her own dear father
A-riding near by.
There she saw her own dear father
A-riding near by.
"O father, dear father,
Don't lay it to me.
The false nurse and False Lamkin
Has killed your lady.
"There is blood in the entry,
There is blood in the hall,
There lies your loving lady
Down dead by the wall."
False Lamkin he was hung
On the gallows so high;
The false nurse she was burned
In a furnace near by.
1 Mrs. Ethel Hill of Johnson, Vermont, wrote that on Mr. Hoadley gave words for stanzas 6 and 7 as follows:
"Oh, spare me, False Lamkins,
Oh, spare me, I pray,
And I will give to You as much gold
As you will carry away."
"Oh, if You gave me as much gold
As would stand on yonders deck,
It would not keep the broadsword
From your lily-white neck."