I'm Seventeen Come Sunday- White (Som) 1904
[From: Folk Songs from Somerset: Gathered and Edited with Pianoforte Accompaniment edited by Cecil James Sharp, Charles Latimer Marson, 1905. The original MS at Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2/10/220) has the Seventeen stanza first:
How old are you my fair pretty maid
How old are you my honey?
she answered me quite cheerfully
Oh I'm seventeen come Sunday.
It was sung by Lucy Bain White and her sister, Anna. I assume Sharp's version in Folk Songs from Somerset is a composite with William Spearing's version or he collected another version from the Whites not found in his MS. His notes follow and he mentions the text was changed by Marson.
R. Matteson 2018]
Notes: No. 29. I'M SEVENTEEN COME SUNDAY.
Words and air from Mrs. Lucy White, of Hambridge.
This ballad, with words rewritten by Robert Burns, is in the Scots Musical Museum, 1792, No. 397. The tune there given is a traditional one and was recovered by Burns himself from a singer in Nithsdale. The Scottish tune has little in common with Mrs. White's, although both are in the Dorian mode.
The ballad, with a tune not unlike our version, is published in Songs of the West, No. 73, under the title, "On a May morning so early." See also the Journal of the FoIk-Song Society, Vol. I, 92, and Vol. II, 9.
"I'm Seventeen come Sunday " is widely known throughout Somerset and I have noted it down eight times. The tunes of these several variants are closely related and the words vary but little. I have chosen the particular variant sung by Mrs. White, because it seems to me to embody the characteristics of the tune in their purest forms. Mrs. White learned the song from Mrs. Hannah Bond of Barrington last summer. Poor Hannah had recently broken her thigh, and was tying in bed, singing to amuse herself. She died two days later, at the age of eighty-nine. The words have been softened and to some extent reconstructed by Mr. Marson.
I'm Seventeen Come Sunday- Mrs. Lucy White, of Hambridge.
1. As I walked out one May morning,
One May morning so early,
I overtook a handsome maid
Just as the sun was rising.
With my rue dum day, fol the diddle dol
Fol the dol, the diddle dum the day
2. Her shoes were bright, her stockings white,
Her buckles shone like silver;
She had a black and rolling eye,
And her hair hung down her shoulder.
With my rue dum day, etc.
3 How old are you, my fair, pretty maid?
How old are you, my honey?
She answered me quite cheerfully:
I'm seventeen come Sunday.
With my rue dum day, etc.
4 Can you love me, my fair pretty maid?
Will you marry me, my honey?
She answered me right cheerfully:
I dare not for my mammy.
With my rue dum day, etc.
5 I went down to her mammy's house;
The moon was shining clearly,
I sang beneath her window pane:
Your soldier loves you dearly.
With my rue dum day, etc.
6 O soldier, will you marry me?[1]
For now's your time or never:
For if you do not marry me,
My heart is broke for ever.
With my rue dum day, etc.
7 And now she is the soldier's wife;
And sails across the brine O!
The drum and fife is my delight,
And a merry man is mine, O!
With my rue dum day, fol the diddle dol,
Fol the dol, the diddle dum the day.
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1. Original MS has:
Will you marry me my fair pretty maid,
Will you marry me my honey
she answered me quite cheerfully
oh I dare not for my mammy.
____________________________________
Text from White's at Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2/10/220)
How old are you my fair pretty maid
How old are you my honey
she answered me quite cheerfully
oh I'm seventeen come Sunday
with my me dum day fol the diddle dol
fol the dol the diddle dum the day
Will you marry me my fair pretty maid,
Will you marry me my honey
she answered me quite cheerfully
oh I dare not for my mammy