It Rained a Mist- Bost (NC) c.1935 Brown A
[My title, first line. From: The Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Vol. 2, 1952. A Brown editor's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2013, 2015]
34. Sir Hugh; or, The Jew's Daughter (Child 155)
It is odd, in view of its theme, which is really the ritual murder of a Christian child by Jews, that this ballad should have persisted as it has in popular favor down to our own times. It has been reported fairly recently as traditional song in three shires of England, in the Bahamas, in Nova Scotia, and in nearly a score of regional collections in the United States. See BSM 69-70, and add to the references there given Lincolnshire (ECS 86), Miss Mason's Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs 46-7, Vermont (NGMS 254-6), Tennessee (BTFLS viii 76-8), Florida (SFLQ VIII 154-5), the Ozarks (OFS I 149-56), Ohio (BSO 66-7), Indiana (BSI 128-33), and Wisconsin (JAFL lii 43-4)- Probably the simple pathos of the little child's death rather than any conscious anti-Semitism explains its persistence. Indeed two of our four texts from North Carolina have lost any trace of the Jew's daughter, as modern texts in general have lost sight of the second element of the original story, the miraculous intervention of Our Lady to restore the child to life. The Brown Collection proper has only one version, our A ; the other three have been contributed by Professor Hudson from his own collection.
A. [It rained a mist] No title supplied; the common American title 'The Jew's Daughter' or 'The Jew's Garden' would hardly do for a version that has no mention of Jews. Secured by W. Amos Abrams from Mary Bost of Statesville, Iredell county, apparently in 1935 or 1936. The first stanza seems to have been imperfectly remembered. The absence of the repeat in stanzas 3 and 4 is no doubt accidental.
1 It rained a mist,
It rained all over the town.
That evening the sun came out;
The little boys were tossing their balls around.
2 At first they toss one high,
And then they toss one low,
And then they toss one into a lady's garden
Where no one was allowed to go go go,
Where no one was allowed to go.
3 For no one who has ever went in that garden
Has ever come out again.
'Come in, little boy, come in,
You shall have your ball this evening.'
4 'I won't come in, nor I shan't come in,
Except my playmates too.'
'Come in, little boy, come in,
You shall have your playmates too.'
5 At first she showed him a blood-red apple,
And then she showed him a cherry,
And then she showed him a diamond ring
To entice the little boy in, in, in,
To entice the little boy in.
6 She took him by his little white hand.
She led him from hall to hall.
She led him to the dining hall
Where no one could hear his call, call, call,
Where no one could hear his call.
7 She pinned a white cap over his face.
She pinned it with a pin;
She called for a stabbing knife
To stab his little heart in in in,
To stab his little heart in.
8 'Place my bolster at my head
And my Bible at my feet,
And when my schoolmates call for me
Pray tell them that I am asleep sleep sleep.
Pray tell them that I am asleep.
9 'Exchange my bolster to my feet
And my Bible at my head,
And when my playmates call for me
Pray tell them that I am dead dead dead,
Pray tell them that I am dead.'