House Carpenter- Bishop (KY) 1909 Sharp C
[From: English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; Comprising 122 Songs and Ballads, and 323 Tunes With Lyrics & sheet Music; Collected by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil J. Sharp, published 1917. Sharp's No. 29. is titled, The Daemon Lover. I've changed it to the more appropriate title- House Carpenter.
R. Matteson 2013]
Notes: No. 29. The Daemon Lover.
Texts without tunes:—Child, No. 243.
Texts with tunes:—Journal of the Folk-Song Society, iii., 84. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix xv., tune 1. Songs of the West, 2nd ed., No. 76. American variants: —Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii., 207; xix., 295; xx., 257; xxvi., 360; xxv., 274 (with tune). Broadside by H. De Marsan, New York. Musical Quarterly, January, 1916, p. 18.
House Carpenter- Bishop (KY) 1909 Sharp C Sung by Mrs. Bishop Hexatonic. Mode 4, a. at Clay Co., Kentucky, July 16, 1909
1 Well met, well met my own true love
Well met, well met says he.
O I am from a foreign land,
All alone for the sake of thee.
2 I could have been married to the Queen's daughter
And she would a-married me,
But I've forsaken her and her gold
All alone for the sake of thee.
3 If you could have married the Queen's daughter,
And she would a-married you,
I'm sure you must be for to blame,
For I am married to a little house-carpenter,
And I think him a neat young man.
4 O will you forsake that house-carpenter
And go, O go along with me?
And I will take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of old Willie.
5 What have you got to maintain me?
And what have you got? says she;
O what have you got to maintain me on
While sailing on the sea?
6 Seven vessels all on shore,
Seven more on sea;
And I have got one hundred and ten neat young men
All alone for to wait on thee.
7 She dressed herself in finest silk,
Her baby she kissed, 'twas one, two, three.
O stay, O stay, O stay at home
And bear your father company.
8 She hadn't sailed but a day or two,
I'm sure it was not three,
Till she began to weep
And wept most bitterly.
9 Are you a-weeping for my gold and my silver?
Or are you a-weeping for my store?
Or are you a-weeping for that house-carpenter
That you will never see no more?
10 I'm neither weeping for your gold nor your silver,
I'm neither weeping for your store ;
I'm a-weeping for my poor little baby
That I will never see no more.
11 Cheer up, cheer up, my pretty, fair maid,
Cheer up, cheer up, cried he,
For I will take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet Willie.
12 They did not sail but a day or two,
I'm sure it was not four
Till the vessel sprung a leak and began to sink,
And sank for to rise no more.