Hangman Song- Crowder (NC) 1915 Hart/Kittredge
[From Hart to Kittredge; JAF, 1917 his notes follow. I renumbered the last three stanzas with incorrectly appears as 10-12.
R. Matteson 2015]
THE MAID FREED FROM THE GALLOWS (Child, No. 95).
The first American copy to be printed was published by Child (5 :296), - "The Hangman's Tree," from Virginia by way of North Carolina. Others have appeared in JAFL 21 : 56 (West Virginia, Reed Smith); 26 : 175 (from an Irish servant in Massachusetts); 127 : 64 (South Carolina, Reed Smith); and Miss Wyman and Mr. Brockway have included still another (with the music) in their "Lonesome Tunes," I : 44-48 ("The Hangman's Tree," from Harlan County, Kentucky). See also Reed Smith (JAFL 27 : 59-63; 28 : 200-202); F. C. Brown, p. 9; Cox, 46 :359 (JAFL 29 : 400). For England see Broadwood and Fuller Maitland, "English County Songs," pp. 112- 113 ("The Prickly Bush"); Sharp, "Folk Songs from Somerset," 5: 54-55 ("The Briery Bush"); Sharp, "One Hundred English Folksongs," No. 17, pp. xxiv-xxv, 42-43; "Journal of the Folk-Song Society," 2 : 233-234; 5 : 228-239.
Professor C. Alphonso Smith reports several Virginia variants, with specimens, and gives an extremely interesting account of the performance of the piece among the negroes of Albemarle County as "an out-of-door drama" some twenty-five years ago.[2] An account of a similar performance in England may be found in the "Journal of the Folk-Song Society," 5 : 233-334.? Compare the first version printed below. Professor Smith also reports a variant from Tennessee ("Summer School News," July 31, 1914 (I : I, No. 12, Summer School of the South).
1 Barry prints a tune from Ireland in JAFL 24: 337 (Hudson MS., Boston Public Library, No. 121).
2 Ballads Surviving in the United States, reprinted from the January, 1916, Musical Quarterly, pp. 10-12. See also the Bulletin of the Virginia Folk-Lore Society, No. 2, p. 5; No. 3, p. 8; No. 4, P. 7; No. 5, p. 8. 3 Here reference is made to Mary A. Owen's Voodoo Tales (published in England under the title of Old Rabbit the Voodoo), New York, 1893, pp. 185-189, especially pp. 188-189 (also in Philadelphia ed., 1898, Old Rabbit's Plantation Stories, same pages).
III. Hangman Song. Communicated by Professor W. M. Hart, 1915. From Mrs. Ellen Crowder, mountains of western North Carolina (see p. 306, 1 above).
1. "O hangman, O hangman, just wait awhile,
Just wait a little while!
I believe I see my dear father;
He's travelled for many a mile.
2. "O father, O father, have ye brought me your gold?
Or have ye bought me free?
Or have ye come to see me hung
All on that lonesome tree?"
3. "0 daughter, O daughter, I've not brought you my gold,
And I've not bought you free,
For I have come to see you hung
All on that lonesome tree."
(Similar verses for mother, brother, and sister.)
13. "O hangman, O hangman, just wait a while,
Just wait a little while!
I believe I see my true lover;
He's travelled for many a mile.
14. "0 sweetheart, O sweetheart, have ye brought me your gold?
Or have ye bought me free?
Or have ye come to see me hung
All on that lonesome tree?"
15. "O sweetheart, O sweetheart, I've brought you my gold
And I have bought you free,
For I've not come to see you hung
All on that lonesome tree."