Gilderoy- Dusenberry (Arkansas) c. 1930s
From: Some Rarities from Arkansas
Ed Cary
Midwest Folklore, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Spring, 1959), pp. 21-30
71. GILDEROY
This is the second time that this ballad has been reported in the United States. According to James Johnson, "Gilderoy was a
notorious freebooter in the highlands of Perthshire, who with his gang, for considerable time infested the country, committing the most barbarous outrages on the inhabitants."[8]
The full title of the ballad is offered by A. L. Humphreys in an article for Notes and Queries[9] as "The Wonderful Life of Gilder
Roy, a noted murderer, ravisher, incendiary and highwayman. A native of the Highlands of Perthshire, who was executed, at Edinburgh, about the year 1656, and hung in chains on a gibbet forty feet high, on Leith Walk." Humphreys dates the ballad as 1656.
The Musical Museum goes on to contradict the above date, claiming a black letter broadside "at least as early as 1650." Traditionally, Johnson claims, "the ballad was composed by a young woman, of no mean talent, who unfortunately became attached to this daring robber, and had cohabited with him for some time before his being apprehended."
The ballad was rewritten for more delicate ears by a Lady Wardlaw though no date is offered by Johnson. Humphreys in his N & Q article mentions "The Scotch Lover's Lamentation or Gilderoy's Last Farewell" which probably is the Wardlaw rewrite. He quotes one stanza:
"At Leith, they took my Gilderoy,
And there, God wot, they hang'd him,
Carry'd him to fair Edenburgh (sic)
And there, God wot, they hang'd him,
They hang'd him up above the rest,
He was so trim a Boy,
My only Love and Heart's Delight,
my handsome Gilderoy."[10]
See also Journal of the English Folk Song Society II (1906) p. 239 for another traditional text. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (London, 1891) Volume I, pp. 321 ff. has the Wardlaw rewrite. Francis James Child included it in English and Scottish Ballads (The British Poets Series, Boston, Little Brown and Company, 1858, Volume VI, pp. 196 ff.) but though he could identify the Wardlaw emendations, he declined to use the broadside in his The English and Scottish Ballads. The Henry E. Huntington Library of San Marino, California, has a Catnach imprint of the Wardlaw text which may date as early as 1815. The music set with a new text, "Ah, Chloris, Could I Now But Sit" was often included in English collections of popular songs in the 18th Century, but generally listed under the title, "Gilderoy."
As sung by Mrs. Dusenberry, the ballad has Gilderoy hanged not for terrorizing the countryside but for "disgracing a woman" as she put it. The Dusenberry version most probably is derived from Lady Wardlaw's rewrite, thus partially accounting for the defective text.
I and Gildy was borned in one town together.
At seven years old we loved one another.
Our fathers and our mothers too both thinking of much joy,
A-thinking of the wedding day of I and Gilderoy.
But I and Gildy waited till we was full sixteen
And then we spent the rest of our days among the leaves so green."
Is it not a pity that a man should be hung
For stealing women's wearing?
A-robbing ladies of their hears (sic) or any such affairing?
They carried him to London Town and there they condemned him.
They carried him to Wisdom Town and there they did hang him.
They hung him up above the rest, just like a trimmy boy.
When they had said all they could say,
She raised and kissed her joy.
Saying, "You've robbed me of my heart's delight;
You've robbed me of my joy.
You've robbed me of my heart's delight;
You've robbed me of my boy."
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Footnotes:
8. Scots Musical Museum, Vol. I, p. 70.
9. N&Q, CLXXVIII (1940), p. 311. I am indebted to D. K. Wilgus for furnishing this reference.
10. N&Q, p. 311. This is quoted from the Bagford Ballads, Part I, pp. 105-107. Humphreys also says that the ballad is in the Pepys Collection. Johnson cites Playford's Wit and Mirth (1st ed, 1703, Vol. III) as a source for the older, unexpurgated version of the ballad. For a recording, see Ewan MacColl, Bad Lads and Hard Cases, Riverside LP 12-632.