House Carpenter- Gevedon (KY) 1910 Roberts
[From: In the Pine; Roberts 1978. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2013]
28. House Carpenter
Child had eight broadside versions of the ballad, the oldest (A) from Pepys of 1685 and the remainder from Scotland (F from Scott's Minstrelsy). Only his A has the full story and helps to explain the title. Jane Reynolds is betrothed to James Harris, a seaman. He is impressed as a sailor and is reported dead after three years. Jane marries a ship-carpenter and they live for four years and have children. James (like a man, but really his ghost) returns and persuades Jane to run away with him and he will support her with his seven ships. They are seen no more (other texts explain how the ship struck a rock and sank), and when the carpenter returns and finds his babies alone, he hangs himself. The other Child versions begin where James returns, B with the line that characterizes almost all later British and American texts: "Well met, well met, my own true love." The demonic character of the lover is lost, even in Child's texts, except for mention of his cloven foot and the "hills of heaven and hell" lines.
In America the ballad is wide-spread. It is close to Child's B and some variants retain the demonic allusions. But it also has been helped in American tradition by appearing in printed broadsides from Philadelphia and New York before the Civil War. It is second only to "Barbara Allen" in the number of texts found in several states. It seems not to have been collected in Canada, but has been found in Maine, Vermont, New York, West Virginia (FSS, no. 25,21 texts; TBFWV, no. 12, WVCS, no.6l); Virginia (TBV no.40, 52 texts; SharpK, no. 35, 2); North Carolina (SharpK, II, 2 texts; NCF, II, no. 37, 24 texts, IV,8 tunes); Mississippi, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, the Ozarks, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. Lawless lists 173 in print. The number of Kentucky texts runs a weak third to those of Virginia and North Carolina. There are two in JAF (1907:257 1939:46); two in KFLp (II: 7, l7), and one or more in KFR (1960:127), scSM (158, from Jean Thomas), KySyll DD, BB (no. 55), SFQ (1938:75), TKMS, SharpK (no. 49, 6). I have seventeen texts in my collection. The present one was collected by Mrs. Meta Back in 1960, from Mrs Jessie Gevedon, who learned it from her dulcimer-playing father in about 1910. They all lived in Morgan County.
SCALE: Hexachordal (g a b c d e).
MODE: Plagal"
RANGE: d'- d" (perfect octave)"
TONAL CENTER: G; circular tune.
PHRASE STRUCTURE: A B CD E D, (4,4,4,4,4,4) or AB C ( 8,8,8).
MELODIC RELATIONSHIP: Cf. TTCB, pp. 433ff, Bronson gives 145 variants of this Child Ballad No. 243, most of them bearing in contour and pitch levels to ours;closest tune variant is probably "House Carpenter" No. 85, p.467; also Cf. measures 9 to 16 here with the "The King's Daughters" in this collection, final bars.
House Carpenter- collected by Mrs. Meta Back in 1960, from Mrs Jessie Gevedon, who learned it from her dulcimer-playing father in about 1910. They all lived in Morgan County.
"I could have married a king's daughter
And think she would've married me,
But I refused that crown of gold
And it's all for the sake of thee."
(Repeat the last two lines of each stanza.)
"If you could've married a king's daughter,
I'm sure you are to blame,
For I have married a house carpenter,
And I think he's a fine young man."
"If you will leave your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the grass is ever green
On the banks of sweet Italy."
"If I should leave my house carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you got to support me upon
And to keep me from poverty?'
"I have three hundred armored men
And seven ships at sea,
And that's enough to support you upon
And to keep you from poverty."
They had not been at sea two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Until she began to moan and weep,
And she wept most bitterly.
"Oh, is it for my gold you weep,
Or is it for my store,
Or is it for your poor little babes
That you never will see any more?'
"It is not for your gold I weep,
Neither is it for your store,
But it is for my poor little babes
I never will see any more."
They had not been at sea three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four,
Until the ship sank in the deep,
And it sank to rise no more.