It Rained a Mist- Bray (NC) pre1932 Brown B
[From: The Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Vol. 2, 1952. A Brown editor's notes follow. See music at bottom of page from Volume 4,
R. Matteson 2013, 2015]
34. Sir Hugh; or, The Jew's Daughter (Child 155) Brown Collection
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.
B. 'It Rained a Mist.' Sent to Professor Hudson in 1932 by one of his students, Miss Marjorie Craig, with the explanation that it "was given me by Cleophas Bray of Roanoke Rapids. While I was teaching there, he attended high school intermittently from one of the mill villages. . . . Cleophas brought me this, saying that his mother (who came from the mountains of North Carolina) used to sing it." Here, as in A, there is no mention of Jews. The failure of the repeat in the fourth line of stanza 6 is probably an accidental omission.
1 It rained a mist, it rained a mist,
It rained all over the town;
And two little boys went to play,
To toss the ball around, around,
To toss the ball around.
2 At first they tossed the ball too high,
And then they tossed it too low,
Then they tossed it into a shop
Where no one was allowed to go, to go.
Where no one was allowed to go.
3 Out came a young miss all dressed in silk,
All dressed in silk so fine:
'Come in, my boy, my pretty little boy.
You shall have your ball again, again.
You shall have your ball again.'
4 'I won't come in, I shan't come in,
Unless my playmate comes too.
For offtimes I've heard of little boys going in
Who never was known to go out again, again.
Who never was known to go out.'
5 She took him by his little white hand,
She led him through the hall
And into the dining room,
Where no one could hear his call, oh call,
Where no one could hear his call.
6 She laid him on a lily-white bed
And covered his little white face,
And then she called for a carving knife
To carve his little heart out,
To carve his little heart out.
7 'Oh place a prayer-book at my head,
And a Bible at my feet,
And if my playmate should call for me,
Just tell him that I'm asleep, asleep,
Just tell him that I'm asleep.
8 'Oh place a Bible at my feet
And a prayer-book at my head.
And if my mother should call for me
Just say that I am dead, O dead,
Just say that I am dead.'
B. 'It Rained a Mist.' Sung by the mother of Cleophas Bray. From previous recording of Dr. W. A. Abrams, Boone; no date. Measures 2-4 are closely related to Mrs. Calvin Hicks's 'Bold Robing' (No. 33) ; measures 7-10 are very similar.
For melodic relationship cf. ***BB 67, version D; SCB 148-49, first two measures only; **BMFSB 22; JAFL xxxix (1926), 213; BSO 66, No. 20; BB 66-7. Scale: Mode III. Tonal Center: d. Structure: abb1cc1 (2,2,2,2,2) ab (4,6) ; b is terminally incremented.