How Come this Blood?- Bishop (VA) 1932 Davis BB
[My title. From Davis; More Traditional Ballads 1960. This is the only new traditional version presented in this book. Davis' notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
EDWARD
(Child, No. 13)
Despite the remarkable dramatic power of this ballad in which a mother pries from her son a confession that he has murdered
his father or brother, relatively few texts have been found in Britain and America. The versions in TBVa, and the present versions, with one exception, follow Child A in presenting the crime as fratricide rather than patricide; in BB Edward appears to have murdered his sweetheart.
It is likely that AA is the first uncorrupted American text to follow Child A and B in implicating the mother. Previously, only a garbled text from Vermont (Vt. Hist. Society, Proceedings, N. S., VII, 1939, 102), which was a combination of "The Twa Brothers" and "Edward," involved the mother in the crime [See George Edwards text "Edward Ballad," a ballad recreation]. AA, however, is a fine text which is remarkably close to the language and detail of Child A--particularly in the concluding "fire of coals" speech. In spite of the possible ambiguity of this speech, it seems clear that the son would gladly see his mother burn in hell for her complicity. The title "Percy" and the address to "Son Percy, Son Percy" seem to be unique in this version.
BB is a fragmentary but distinctive text with a tune verifiable from the record. The text of CC from the same source appeared as TBVa B, but the tune is new and of interest. Child prints only two versions of this ballad, from Motherwell and Percy, respectively, plus an 1829 manuscript fragment of Alexander Laing. Continental counterparts seem to be limited to Northern Europe-Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway. These versions, plus the English, Scottish, and American, have been carefully studied by Professor Archer Taylor in Edward and Sven i Rosengaard (University of Chicago Press, 1931). No record of this ballad in recent British tradition appears either in Margaret Dean-Smith's Guide or in Greig and Keith's Last Leaves. American texts and tunes are fairly well known (Sharp-Karpeles print ten), but Coffin has shown the ballad to be less common than most in American tradition, and less varied in story types. TBVa printed only five out of an available six texts, with two tunes. FSVa lists only three items, with two tunes, all of which are presented here.
The poetic and dramatic excellence of this ballad has led some scholars and critics to question whether it may not be rather the product of conscious art than of folk tradition (see Bertrand H. Bronson, SFQ, IV I 1940], 1-13 and 159-61, and Arthur K. Moore, Comparative Literature, X [Winter, 1958], 16). The appearance of so many and varied American texts and tunes from authentic oral tradition-including the three that follow-should go far toward a solution of the problem, even without the authority of Child. But the voice of Child is also clear: " 'Edward' is not only unimpeachable, but has ever been regarded as one of the noblest and most sterling specimens of the popular ballad." Perhaps it is only Percy's version, with its antique spelling and dramatic climax, that is subject to some question.
Bronson (I, 237-47) prints a limited twenty-four tunes (with texts) of this ballad first given to the world by Percy. Motherwell fails to give a promised tune, so that "all the tunes that have been found for this ballad, save one or two, come from the Appalachians, and all have been recovered only in the present century." No recent Scottish version has been found, and only very recently a copy from Hampshire in England. Bronson distinguishes three groups: Group A, with six members, composed of Appalachian variants and their derivatives; Group B, with thirteen items, composed of variants with tunes (three) traditionally associated with other ballads ("Gypsy Laddie" or "Lady Isabel," "Boyne Water," or "The House Carpenter" ) ; and a somewhat arbitrary Group C, of five variants, developing from "The House Carpenter" and with other connections. Of the two tunes of TBVa, C is classified in Group B, D in Group C.
BB. ["How Come this Blood?"] "Edward." Phonograph record (aluminum) made by A. K. Davis, Jr. Sung by Mrs. S. A. Bishop, of Marion, Va. Smyth County. August 16, 1932. Text transcribed by P. C. Worthington. Tune noted by G. W. Williams
and E. C. Mead.
"How come this blood on your shirt sleeve,
My son, pray tell on to me?"
"It is the blood of the little gray mare
That plowed those fields for me,
That plowed those fields for me."
2. "It's too red a blood for the little gray mare,
Plowed those fields for me."
"It is the blood of the little dear girl
That walked and talked with me,
That walked and talked with me."
3. "What you gonna do when your father comes home,
My son, pray tell on to me?"
"I'll set my foot on the yonders ship,[1]
And I'll sail across the sea,
I'll sail across the sea."
4 "When you coming back, my son, to me,[2]
My son, pray tell on to me?"
"When the moon and the sun goes down upon the green,[3]
And nobody else but me,
And nobody else but me."[4]
t. "Yonders" is uncertain.
z. These last four words are uncertain"
3. Singer starts "When the sun. . . hesitates, and continues "moon and the sun."
4. Last lines unclear.