Four Marys- Ritchie (KY) c.1950 REC
[From 1966 video of Jean and Edna Ritchie singing Four Marys; filmed by George Pickow in Viper, Kentucky. View on Youtube or this link: http://nodepression.com/video/jean-and-edna-ritchie-four-marys-1966
Also on Jean Ritchie, The Most Dulcimer, Greenhays Recordings CR70714; ballad recorded in 1984. Her comments follow.
According to Ritchie, this was the family version from Viper, Kentucky that was sung at home. Since this was not a local ballad the source probably was print or a recording. Jean added verses from Jeannie Robertson in 1952.
R. Matteson 2015]
Jean commented on Mudcat forum: This was the version we sang at home in KY. I got other verses from Jeannie Robertson when we met in 1952, and she said the first two verses "like a poetry," and I told her to try singing them, as they were actually the first two verses of her "Four Maries." She couldn't believe it at first, tried it, then finally it fit. She was so happy!
Yes, the 1953 recording of Jeannie Robertson was done by myself and my husband George Pickow, towards the end of my Fulbright year in the British Isles and Northern Ireland (or as we say at home,England, Scotland and Ireland). Hamish Henderson was along as friend, guide, and collector with us on behalf of his University. Alan Lomax borrowed from this collection to round out his own. And he was kind in repaying the favor when I needed one of the long ballads he got the year before (from Elizabeth Cronin) which she hadn't had time to sing for us. Hamish, Alan, Seamus Ennis, Peter Kennedy, and we two (George and I) were close friends that year, 1952-53, and were at many festivals and traditional celebrations together. A most marvelous time, and over all too soon.
Four Marys- sung by Jean Ritchie, The Most Dulcimer, Greenhays Recordings CR70714; ballad recorded in 1984
Last night there were four Marys
The night there'll be the three
There was Mary Seaton and Mary Beaton
And Mary Carmichael and me
Last night I dressed Queen Mary
And put gold upon her hair
But all I'm to get for my reward
Is the gallows to be my share
Oh, little did my mother ken
The day she cradled me
Of the land I was to travel in
Or the death I was to dee
Oh, happy, happy is the maid
That's born of beauty free
For it was my dimple and rosy cheeks
That was the ruin of me
They'll bind a kerchief aroond my een
They'll no let me see to dee
They'll never tell my father and mother
But what I'm awa o'er the sea.
Last night there were four Marys
The night there'll be the three
There was Mary Seaton and Mary Beaton
And Mary Carmichael and me