Bluegrass Messengers

Gypsy Davy- (AR) 1930 Goodhue/Randolph C

[Single last stanza from Ozark Folksongs; Randolph, I, 1946, p. 160 (C). His notes follow.

R. Matteson 2015]


Ozark Folksongs Notes: 27. THE GYPSY DAVY

Many texts of the "Gypsy Davy" ballad are found in British collections (Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1882-1898, No. 200). For American versions see JAFL 30, 1917, p. 323. Also the Bulletin of the Virginia Folk-Lore Society (No. 8, p. 7; No. 9, p. 7; No. 11, p. 8). Compare Campbell and Sharp (English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, 1917, No. 27), Raine (Land of the Saddle-Bags, 1924, p. 119), Cox (Folk-Songs of the South, 1925, p. 130), Kincaid (My Favorite Mountain Ballads, 1928, p. 33), Davis (Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929, pp. 423-431), Lunsford and Stringfield (30 and 1 Folk-Songs, 1929, p. 4), Greenleaf (Ballads and Sea Songs from Newfoundland, 1933, pp. 38-39), Chappell (Folk-Songs of Roanoke and the Albemarle, 1939, p. 37), Eddy (Ballads and Songs from Ohio, 1939, pp. 67-69), Linscott (Folk Songs of Old New England, 1939, p.207), Neely (JAFL 52, 1939, p. 79), Belden (Ballad; and Songs, 1940, pp.73-76), Brewster (Ballads and Songs of Indiana, 1940, p. 13a), Rayburn (Ozark Country, 1941, pp.200-201), Morris (Southern Folklore Quarterly 8, 1944, p. 156), and the Brown (North Carolina Folk-Lore Society) collection.

C. [Gypsy Davy.] Professor F. M. Goodhue, Commonwealth College, Mena, Ark., June 30, 1930, reports a variant in which the last stanza runs:

Last night I lay on a warm feather bed,
Beside of you and my baby,
But tonight I lay on the cold, cold ground,
Beside of the Gypsy Davy,
Beside of the Gypsy Davy.