False Lamkin- Riley (MI) 1935 Gardner A
[From: Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan, p. 314 by Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering; 1939. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2105]
127 LAMKIN (Child, No. 93)
Michigan A is so fragmentary that it is difficult to tell which of the Child versions (II, 320-342) it most resembles. In only two Child versions, E and W, and in no other American version noted, does Lamkin construct an entrance for himself. It is notable that in Michigan B the lady is not actually murdered, nor is Lamkin punished, as he is in most other texts, by hanging, burning, or boiling in a pot full of lead. For additional texts see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, pp. 200--06; Davis, pp. 354-359; Fuson, pp. 71-72 [not in Fuson]; Henry, JAFL, XLIV, 61-63; Mary Ella Leather, The FolJ-Lore of Herefordshire (London, 1912), pp. 199-200; Sharp, I, 201-207; Tolman, JAFL, XXIX, 162-164; and Tolman and Eddy, JAFL, XXXV, 344.
A. [False Lamkin]- sung and recited in 1935 by Mrs. Sol Riley, near Kalkaska.
Sung: 1. False Lamkin was as good a mason
As ever laid a stone;
He built Lord Arnold's castle,
And the lord paid him none.
2 He built it without,
And he built it within;
He built a false window
For himself to creep in.
Recited: Lord Arnold goes away from home.
Sung: 3. And he told his daughter Betsy
To stay up in the chamber so high
Till she saw her loving father
In his ship sailing by.
Recited: Lord Arnold comes home and sees his infant lying dead at the gate.
Sung: 4. And he ran to the castle,
And he opened the door,
And he saw his loving lady
Lying dead on the floor.
Recited The daughter had to hold a silver basin for to catch the child's blood or the mother's blood.
Sung 5. "It's father, O father,
Don't you blame me,
It was false Lamkin and false nurse
That murdered mama."
6. False Lamkin was hung
On the gallows so high;
While false nurse she was burned
In a fire nigh by.