Golden Willow Tree- Presnell (NC) 1966 Burton
[From Folksongs II by Burton and Manning; Proffitt's version from that area has "salt water juice." Here are two bios on Hattie Presnell and Lee Monroe Presnell:
HATTIE PRESNELL (Burton)
Hattie Kneevista Hicks Presnell was born June 19, 1907, to Buna and Roby Monroe Hicks. She moved with her family to the Watauga River and returned with them to spice creek. There she went to Rominger School and got to the third primer before she stopped attending in order to bear more responsibilities at home because of illness in the family. Hattie remained at home until she was nineteen years old, at which time she married Dewey Presnell. She has traveled to Arkansas, Canada, New york, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Many of the songs she knows come from Van Buren County, Arkansas, where
her husband for eleven years of his childhood would often hear "song after song all night long" sung by Mrs. Ida Mclntyre. Hattie's songs were also learned from her father-in-law and great-uncle, Lee Monroe Presnell, and through him from Lie-hew (John Calvin Yonce came to Beech Mountain every seven years and was named Lie-hew by the folks on the mountain because he "lied so much and hewed on a stick all the time"; it was rather difficult to learn his songs, Hattie says, because if he thought that the motive behind a request was to learn a song he would refuse to sing). Hattie is also indebted for songs to her mother, with whom she has remained closely associated over the years.
LEE MONROE PRESNELL (Warners)
We met Lee Monroe Presnell, Uncle Monroe, for the first time in 1951 at Beech Creek, at the home of Roby and Buna Hicks. He endeared himself to us immediately. He was handsome, with white hair and a drooping moustache. He had a gentle, courteous
voice and manner and, as we later discovered, a magnificent singing voice. He was loved and admired by all who knew him. We were moved when he said at the end of an afterlgon's fellowship, "I never seen folks I liked better to be with. You seem like my own folks. And I ain't tellin' you that because I'm in your presence."
Jeff and Gerret were drawn to him too. They were eight and five that summer. Monroe said to Gerret, "I've nary a boy, and I live all alone in a little house up tha'r. Why don't you come and stay with me? Would you do it?"
Gerret rose to the occasion. "I will," he said, "if my mother will let me."
Uncle Monroe and Roby Monroe Hicks were related. 'We are not sure just how, though Monroe was Buna's uncle. "Roby was named for me," Monroe said, "since I'm older than he is." Buna Hicks's father, Andrew Jackson Presnell, and Uncle Monroe
were brothers. We wonder if anyone knows all the ramifications of family lines and relationships on Beech Mountain!
We did a great deal of singing and recording during our 1951 visit. It was the first time we had had a tape machine in the mountains. Our machine, indeed, may have been one of the first tape recorders in the mountains. Frank asked Uncle Monroe
if he would talk a bit and perhaps sing for us, and he graciously consented. First we got him to tell us a bit about himself:
I was born on the Wataugy [Watauga] River, and my daddy was Eli Murphy Presnell, come from middle Tennessee, and my mother was raised on the waters of Wataugy- Harmon was her name. [She was the daughter of Council Harmon, old-time singer and storyteller. Much Beech Mountain lore is traced back to him.] There was twelve in family. I won't undertake to tell the names of all of 'em, but I am the youngest one. I was seventy-five on the fifteenth of last May.
Burton's Notes: Other variants from a late seventeenth-century broadside specify that the Golden Vanity or the Sweet Trinity was a ship of Sir walter Raleigh's that had been captured by a Spanish, French, or Turkish galleon.
THE GOLDEN WILLOW TREE (Child 286)- Sung by Hattie Presnell, October 29, 1966;
learned from her husband, Dewey Presnell.
(Mrs. Presnell improvises the tune loosely around that given for stanza 1 and refrains.)
There was a ship that sailed upon the lowland, lonesome low,
Sailed upon the lowland sea;
And the name of our ship was the Golden Willow Tree,
And we feared she'd be sunk by the Turkish traveling crew
As she sailed upon the lowland, lonesome low,
As she sailed upon the lowland sea.
2. Then up stepped our cabin boy and loudly spoke he,
Saying, "Captain, what will you give me
If I sink her in the lowland, lonesome low,
If I sink her in the lowland sea?"
3. "Oh, I'll give you my house, and I'll give you my land;
My only daughter can be at your command
If you sink her in the lowland, lonesome low,
If you sink her in the lowland sea."
4. He bent to his breast, and he swum very fast
Till he reached the Turkey traveling crew,
With a little instrument just for the use
To cut nine gaps for the salty water juice,"
And he sunk her in the lowland, lonesome low,
And he sunk her in the lowland sea.
Then he bent to his breast and he swum very fast
Till he reached the Golden Willow Tree.
"Captain, are you good as your word?
Will you do what you said you would?"
"If it wasn't for the love that I had for your men,
I'd do unto you as I done unto them;
I would sink ye in the lowland, lonesome low,
I would sink ye in the lowland sea."