False Lover- Mrs. Hopkins (IN) 1935 Brewster A
[From Brewster: Ballads and Songs of Indiana; Indiana University Publications, Folklore Series 1940. His notes follow.
Brewster failed to identify the antecedent broadside, "Constant Lady and the False-Hearted Squire." The title compares to the two versions collected by Vaughan Williams in Essex.
R. Matteson 2017]
58. LOVE HAS BROUGHT ME TO DESPAIR
This is an abbreviated and considerably changed version of the English "A Brisk Young Sailor." It shows some points of resemblance also to "Sheffield Park," to the seventeenth century broadside "An Excellent New Song, called Nelly's Constancy; or, Her Unkind Lover" (Pepys, V, 217; Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, VI, 791), and to another seventeenth century broadside, "The Forlorn Lover."
For English texts and references, see Broadwood, English Traditional Songs and Carols, p. 92; Butterworth, Folk Songs from Sussex, p. 14; JFSSf I, 252; II, 155, 158, 168; III, 188; V, 181, 183, 184, 188; Kidson, Traditional Tunes, p. 44, 46; Kidson and Neal, English Folk-Song and Dance, p. 57; Leather, The Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, p. 205; Sharp, One Hundred English Folk-Songs, No. 94; R. Vaughan Williams, Folk-Songs from the Eastern Counties, p. 9; Roxbarghe Ballads, IX, 635 ("The Constant Lady and the False-Hearted Squire"); Chappell, Old English Popular Music, p. 153 (fragment and air). See also Journal, XXIX, 170.
"False Lover." Contributed by Mrs. A. J. Hopkins, of Boonville, Indiana, Warrick County. Learned from her mother and sisters. May 22, 1935. With music.
In Oxford Town in Halifax fair
As I walked out to take the air,
I viewed the hills and the valleys 'round,
And at length I heard a doleful sound.
"My father he is a wealthy man;
My mother she is a lady fair,
And I their child, the only heir;
False lover has brought me to despair."
Then through yonder meadow at will she goes,
A-picking the flowers just as they grow,
First a pink and then a blue
Until she has gathered the meadow through.
Then out of the flowers she made her a bed,
A flowery pillow to ease her head.
Then she lay down, and then she Spoke:
Saying, "O false lover, my heart is broke.
"Go dig my grave both wide and deep;
Put a marble stone at my head and feet,
And on my breast put a turtle-dove
That the world may know I died for love."
When Mary's true love this news came to be told,
That her fair body was dead and cold,
"I'm glad," said he, "she has done so well;
I long to hear the tolling bell.
"When Mary in Abraham's bosom shall sleep,[1]
So softly, softly she will sleep;
When Mary in Abraham's bosom shall sleep,
My poor soul in hell it will weep."
1 The sleep in the first line of this stanza should probably be "keep". [Brewster] The lines appear:
In Abraham's bosom may she sleep,
While thy wicked soul doth weep!
The first two lines were not remembered at some point during this version of the ballad's life.