Heckey-Hi Si Bernio- Porter (NY) 1933 Flanders A
[From Flanders, Version A in Ancient Ballads, 1960. Coffin's notes follow. Clearly this is a much older version than 1933, however, at this point (without roots research) and earlier date can not be determined.
R. Matteson 2014]
Babylon
(Child 14)
This song is quite hard to find in Anglo-American tradition, although it is known to most of the Germanic peoples. It has been collected in New England, the Maritime Provinces, and the Appalachians, but has not been popular enough to spread West.
The Flanders A version, in which the youngest sister kills the brother, is unique to America. The B-D texts follow the Child A story and seem to have borrowed from "High Barbary" in their refrain. Phillips Barry (British Ballads from Maine, 72) found a fragment in Maine which seems to relate to Child F, and he also points out in BFSSNE, VII,6, that Child E, from G. R. Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballad's ([London, 1827], 212), introduces the girl's brother as a means of thwarting the robber. The villain is to be hanged or fed to toads or rattlesnakes, even though the rattlesnake is not found in Britain. However, there cannot be much variation in a ballad tradition as sparse as that of the Anglo-American "Babylon."
Consult coffin, 46-47 (American); and Greig and Keith, 15 and l2l (Scottish), for further remarks and bibliography.
All three of the tunes for Child 14 are related. The Porter tune corresponds to BC1 group B, while the Moses and Barton tunes belong with BC1 group A. The beginning of Barton, however, corresponds to that of Porter. For melody relationships for all three, see GN, 10 and Maud Karpeles Folk Songs from Newfoundland (1934), II, 78-82. Evidently this tune family is restricted to northeastern North America.
A. Text and, air obtained from Mrs. Marjorie L. Porter, Plattsburg, New York. Mrs. Porter believes it was brought from Basin Harbor, Vermont, to Bessboro, now Westport, New York, by her mother's grandmother, Margaret Winans. Text printed in the Springfield, Mass. Republican, April 2, 1933, and in BFSSNE , VII, 6 (1934). H. H. F., Collector; 1933. Structure: A B C Db (2,2,2,2); Rhythm C; Contour: arc; Scale: tetratonic. t.c. A-flat. Note the alternation between A-flat and E-b in the first line.
Heckey-Hi Si Bernio [1]
There were three maids lived in a barn-
Heckey-hi si bernio-
When up there rose a wicked man,
On the bonny banks of Bernio.
He took the eldest by the hand,
He whirled her 'round and made her stand.
"Heckry, lass, will you be young Robey's wife?
Or rather would you die by my penknife?"
"Never will I be young Robey's wife;
Rather would I die by your penknife."
So he took her life and laid it by,
To keep the greensward cornpan-eye.
He took the next one by the hand,
He whirled her 'round and made her stand.
"Heckry, lass, will you be young Robey's wife?
Or rather would you die by my penknife?"
"Never will I be young Robey's wife,
Rather would I die by your penknife."
So he took her life and laid it by,
To keep the greensward compan-eye.
He took the youngest by the hand,
He whirled her 'round and made her stand.
"Heckry, lass, will you be young Robey's wife?
Or rather would you die by my penknife?"
"Never will I be young Robey's wife,
Neither will I die by your penknife."
So she took his life and laid it by,
To keep her sisters compan-eye.
1. Mrs. Porter mailed a variant to Mrs. Flanders in 1933 that is identical to the one above, except the words "the greensward" are used here and stanza 2 is omitted.