Bluegrass Messengers

Johnny Faa and Black Jack Davy: Cultural Values and Change in Scots and American Balladry

Johnny Faa and Black Jack Davy: Cultural Values and Change in Scots and American Balladry by Christine A. Cartwright;  The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370 (Oct. - Dec., 1980), pp. 397-416.

[Not completely proofed/ edited]

Johnny Faa and Black Jack Davy Cultural Values and Change in Scots and American Balladry*
CHRISTINE A. CARTWRIGHT

THE QUESTION OF CULTURAL FUNCTION is one of the central concerns of oral narrative research, as well as one of the most complex and problematic. Faced with a narrative such as "The Gypsy Laddie" (Child # 200), which has been among the most popular ballads in the English language for well over two hundred years, one of the most useful approaches a scholar can take is to examine the nature and sources of its hold upon the emotions and memory of English-speaking people. The ballad's plot and motifs have remained remarkably consistent, while the emotional tone and interpretation placed upon them have varied greatly. Why do we sing it? Why do we like it? Why have thousands of singers retained certain motifs and motif sequences, while feeling free to make quite individual changes in others? Have most singers liked and remembered the ballad for the same reasons, or does the variation in focus and interpretation indicate a corresponding variation in their understanding of and response to the ballad narrative? Does the same plot line serve different psychological or cultural functions for different singers?

I
"The Gypsy Laddie" was first collected in Scotland, and appeared in print for the first time in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, published in 1740.^[1] It is the tale of a lady of high degree, who abruptly abandons wealth, security, marriage, and motherhood when a band of Gypsies come singing to the door while her lord is away from home. Attracted, in most texts, by her beauty, the Gypsies cast a spell upon her; in a few versions she recovers when her lord, hearing the news from the servants, comes to bring her home, but in most she chooses to remain as she is. The ballad ends with the hanging or slaying of the entire Gypsy band (or all but one, who tells the story).

It is always difficult to reconstruct the cultural function of a narrative for people now dead, but through a combination of textual analysis and historical and sociological study, it is possible to make some educated guesses about the principal reasons for the ballad's popularity in eighteenth-century Scotland. We do not find traveling-salesman stories circulating in groups that take a relaxed view of casual adulteries, nor do we find priest, pastor, and rabbi jokes where no religious tension exists. In this case, we have a ballad in which several m ale m embers of an itinerant minority, racially and culturally distinct from the dominant population, abduct a rich, pretty wife and mother belonging to that dominant population, usually by means of a spell. The degree to which the lady is responsible for her own actions is left ambiguous in almost every published text, for, though bespelled at the opening of the ballad, her will and her wits seem very much her own when she refuses to return to her lord at its close. The ballad's narrative tension, then, seems to spring from a two-edged threat presented by the Gypsies: their invasion of and imposition upon Scottish culture, with all of their disturbing, foreign values and ways, as well as their potentially threatening attractiveness.

We know that there was indeed a Gypsy population of considerable size in Scotland shortly before records of the ballad's existence begin to appear. They were abruptly ordered out of the country by an act of the Scottish Parliament in 1609, and there are records thereafter of Gypsies( including three by the name of Johnne Faa, the name borne by the Gypsy chieftain and l over of the lady in many of the Scottish ballad texts) being hanged for having "remanet within this Kingdome."[2] While the parliamentary decree does not offer much detail or explanation of its grounds, the trials of Gypsies found within Scotland's borders after its enactment cast a good deal of light upon Scottish opinion of Gypsies in general. The court records of one Gypsy trial contain the court's observation that it should be leisum to all his Maiesteis guid subiectis, or ony of thame, to caus tak, apprehend, imprisone, and execute to death, all maner of Egyptianis, alsweill men as wemen, as cowmone, notorious, and condempnet Thevis, only to be tryit be an Assyse, that thai are callit, knawin, repute, and haldin Egyptianis . . .[3]

The equation here between "Gypsy" and "thief" is explicit, wholesale, and final: if one were known to be a Gypsy, the law presumed that he or she was also a thief. The congruence between this blatant, official assumption and the assumptions expressed in later exoteric lore concerning Gypsies is too great and too widely supported to be ignored as a factor in the early cultural functions of "The Gypsy Laddie." Legend and legal action all over Great Britain in the nineteenth century show clearly t hat Gypsies were generally associated with child-stealing, curses, theft, fortune-telling, and the seduction of young women. They have long been considered dirty and their lifestyle squalid; they have been believed to possess arcane knowledge and powers, and their dark hair and eyes, ornaments, bright clothes, and distinctive music have connected them, in Scottish and English eyes, with the dangers and temptations of exotic cultures outside of northern Europe and away from Christianity. Given these associations and reactions as part of the climate in which the ballad was born, its tale of a white woman abducted by Gypsies (sometimes robbed, sometimes bedded, and invariably placed under a spell) must have evoked a powerful complex of cultural anxieties and concerns.

Certainly there must have been an element of outright ethnic fear and hatred, especially during the years (however many they were) of the ballad's life prior to its first appearance in print, when Gypsies were still numerous enough to warrant immediate, practical concern for the safety of one's valuables, horses, and women folk. Probably by Burns's day, when the nobility had so allied themselves with French and English manners and customs that it was no longer respectable for a Scot to speak or write Scots, a certain amount of nostalgia also entered into popular response to the ballad: nostalgia for the days when laird and tenant alike were proud to be Scottish, and resisted the infiltration of foreign views and ways. But perhaps most deeply and consistently of all, the Scottish ballad texts seem to focus on the controlled, formulaic expression of the ambivalence long felt in Scotland toward the Eastern, Latin, and tropical cultures which they sailed out to for trading purposes, and were invaded by when the Gypsies came and stayed.

For eighteenth-century Scotland, as for any seafaring nation, it was an economic necessity that the men be willing and able both to encounter and to resist the delights of foreign ports. The love of adventure was basic to Scotland's survival-provided that the men (a) came home, and (b) had a home to come back to. The men could not be encouraged by their culture to hate or fear cheap rum and dark-eyed beauties, or to shun the roving life, for someone had to sell the wool and the herring and bring home the silks and spices. Neither could the women be encouraged to enjoy them, for someone had to raise the children and maintain a stable home while the men were away. The Gypsies' presence in Scotland brought several of the most potent dangers and temptations of foreign ports into Scotland itself, and what a Scotsman could comfortably encounter overseas he could not comfortably leave his wife and children to cope with at home; what was good for the gander was not good for the goose. Faced with the foreign music, the spices, and the "black, but very bonny" beauty the Gypsies bring to "our lord's gate" in most of the extant Scottish texts, the lady reacts as many a Scottish sailor did, and becomes a "rantin, rovin" lassie. Surely one of the great currents of narrative tension in the ballad is this inversion of right order: the lord coming home to find that the "out there" has come here; the husband trying desperately to restore the stability of his home and family, and the wife who should have kept it stable in his absence becoming the rover.

Robert Burns and the historian Robert Chambers, both of whom influenced Child's interpretation of the ballad's functions, assert that it was generally understood as a romantic tragedy, involving the unhappily married Lady Jean Cassilis and her lover Lord John Faa, who disguised himself as a Gypsy in order to elope with his old true love.[4] Chambers tells the story in great detail, claiming that it circulated as local legend in Ayrshire, and assumes that it is based upon an actual historical occurrence.[5] Child's own research, however, led him to conclude that Chambers's account had no basis whatsoever in fact; he quotes letters of Lord Cassilis's which indicate that he and his lady lived in harmony all their lives, and that she was never abducted by any
 Gypsies, genuine or otherwise. Certainly the ballad texts themselves never suggest that the Gypsy was anything but a Gypsy; on the contrary, textual evidence indicates that both the Gypsies and the spell were considered genuine.

It is possible that Chambers's version is a Victorian or even a literary creation: a kind of bowdlerization of what was otherwise a disturbing and distasteful picture of romantic and sexual union across ethnic, social, and cultural barriers of a very serious kind. It is also possible that, for inland Ayrshire, long free of infestation by Gypsies, the question of conflict between true love and arranged marriage was more pressing and more in need of expression than the fears and temptations connected with the foreign. Quite possibly, the picture of a Scottish noblewoman shedding her silks, donning a plaidie, and setting her bare feet in the Clyde for the sake of her old true love, whose name was evocative of an older and more Scottish Scotland, was tremendously moving and powerful in the days when Edinburgh spoke more French than Scots. Whatever the relationship between Chambers's version, actual Ayrshire legend, fact, and the ballad, it seems clear that the ballad functioned as a forum for the expression of a number of delicate, intertwined cultural anxieties, centering upon what can happen when the foreign invades the home.

II
The ballad is as popular in America as in Great Britain, but the central concerns of its singers underwent a sea change when it crossed the Atlantic. Textually, the ballad lost the glamourie or Gypsy spell, with its threat of the supernatural alnd the arcane; there were few or no Gypsies around for the immigrants to worry about, and wilderness life offered enough concrete dangers to take one's mind off spells. The Gypsy chieftain lost both his foreignness and his band, and most often appears as a lone traveller. (Apparently, as Barre Toelken remarked, a red-blooded American Gypsy doesn't need any help in capturing a lady's affections.[6]) The lord frequently becomes older, and the lady younger; more focus is placed upon the verbal exchanges and conflicting claims in what is clearly seen as a romantic triangle, in which the singer is free to identify with any of the three participants.

The conserved core of the Scots/English narrative, as it consistently appears in the 193 American texts I have examined, is as follows: the Gypsy rides by (often "through the woods") singing so loudly, beautifully, or gaily that the  lady's heart is immediately "charmed." He asks her to go with him, and she readily complies, frequently taking off or changing her shoes or "boots of Spanish leather." Her husband hears the news when he arrives home that night, and immediately sets out in pursuit, catching up with the lovers at a river (occasionally a bog, a lake, or the "dark and dreary" sea). He begs his lady to come home, offering a threefold appeal: first to her desire for the security of his "house and lands" or "the gold I have," second to her love for her baby, and third to her sense of identity, propriety, or happiness as his wife. She refuses all three pleas, and affirms the finality of her decision to remain with the Gypsy. The endings are diverse, but the common Scots/English stanza in which the lady compares the featherbed of the past with the ground she will now sleep on almost always appears in some form.

Several major changes in cultural function are clearly at work in this basic narrative. The meeting between the lady and the Gypsy received a very different context in America: he is no longer an outsider who intrudes into the lord's house while the lord is not there to guard it. In no text I have seen does he even ride out of the woods into a settled area, which might have indicated that he was considered an outsider. Instead, the Gypsy Davy or Black Jack Davy is simply passing by, riding through the woods, coming "whistling by," or crossing the field or the plain, and more or less inadvertently charms the lady with his singing. The home the lady leaves is apparently in the woods, field, or plain, or next to the road, if she is at home at all when she hears the Gypsy singing. She is never intruded upon, invaded, or abducted by any sleight or force; she is asked if she would like to come along, and does so by her own free choice, quickly made and rarely reversed, though sometimes
regretted.

Clearly, the complex of ideas and images associated with the Gypsy has changed from a frightening, dirty, destructive, and foreign one to something more delightful and worthwhile. Where, in the Scottish texts, the singers described the lady having to wade a river, sleep in "an auld reeky kilt," "the ash-corner," or "a tenant's barn," drink in taverns, sleep "wi' the black crew glowering owre me," and even being made to "carry the Gypsy laddie," stanzas begin to appear in American texts about sleeping under the stars, or singing songs beside a campfire. The American lady may declare, "I wouldn't give a kiss from the Gypsy's lips for all of your lands and money," indicating that the singer is quite clear about her motive for leaving her husband. In Scottish texts, it is only the glamourie which makes the lady see "glamour," an illusory beauty, in Johnny Faa and his life; her proper place, the place of health and sanity and right order where she belongs, is clearly with her family. The American ballad has lost the certainty of that assumption.

The lady's choice, in every aspect but the adulterous, is in fact the choice that settled America. Where a land must be settled, the love of adventure and the willingness to roam become positive cultural values for women as well as for men, and the lady's decision to leave the established society for the wilderness could no longer be seen as a choice that only a bewitched woman would make. Some texts give enough descriptive emphasis to the intangibles the lady is choosing-love and freedom-to suggest that these had become the most moving and significant factors in her decision, for some American singers.

The effects of early American cultural context upon the ballad narrative are most clearly visible in characterization: the interactions between Gypsy, lady, and lord are often structured and phrased so that they resemble what must have been a common interaction between a suitor, a girl, and her father in the days when America was being settled. A young man wanting to move west, or to emigrate to America from Europe, had much the same life to offer his bride as does the ballad's Gypsy; inspired by the promise of furs, ore, and rich farmlands free for the taking, many must have used the same persuasive appeal in courtship:

Oh come with me, my pretty little one,
Oh come with me, my honey;
Swear by the beard upon my chin
That you'll never want for money,
That you'll never want for money.[7]

Black Jack Davy's gay singing, and the sword, gold, or bugle "by his side" which he sometimes swears by in place of his beard, characterize him as an attractive adventurer: a free, independent man who bears upon or within his own body the wherewithal to make a woman happy.[8] One of the great attractions America's West held for men was that strength and enterprise were enough to make a good life--or at least were far more likely to be enough than they were in the mines and tenanted fields of Europe. This image of Black Jack Davy opens the ballad so frequently that it is probably safe to consider it intrinsic to the ballad's meaning and functions in America.

Black Jack Davy charms; he does not spellbind. All direct mention of adultery disappears from American texts, and the romantic connection between the lovers is emphasized rather than the sexual. Several texts borrow a  verse from the early Anglo-American courtship song, "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday," to describe the meeting between the Gypsy and the lady:

"How old are you, my pretty little miss?
How old are you, my honey?"
She answered him with a tee, hee, hee,
"I'll be sixteen next Sunday."[9]

The lady's response to Black Jack Davy is usually in keeping with the general atmosphere of courtship rather than seduction. Her firm, composed assurance that she can indeed leave her house and family to go with the Gypsy, and her comparison of the featherbed she has had with the "cold, cold ground" on which she will now sleep must have allied her, by the bond of recognizable experience and emotion, with a large number of pioneer brides. She is frequently called "this fair young girl," "my pretty fine miss," or "my pretty little one." Babes or no babes, she is more of a lassie, by description, than a lady. The high number of texts in which she and her choice are cast in a positive light suggests that this resonance of ballad with experience was strong enough to overshadow the adulterous nature of her commitment to the Gypsy. Many of the texts we now have in print, collected from oral tradition, may have evolved at a time when Americans "needed" to sing about the risks and sacrifices of pioneer marriage more than they "needed" to sing about temptation, adultery, and the breakdown of the nuclear family.

The lord is often described in terms that suggest a formal, distanced relationship to the lady and perhaps a discrepancy in age between them. He is called "her old landlord," "her own grim (or Ingram) lord," and "her old man." This last term has had ambivalent connotations in American slang throughout the ballad's lifetime, having been used of bosses and fathers, as well as of husbands.[10] In one text, in which the abcb rhyme scheme is otherwise consistent, this verse concludes "her old man's" search for the "pretty
little one":

So he rode all night 'til the broad daylight,
Until he came to the water;
He crossed and he looked on the other side,
And there he spied his darling,
There he spied his darling.[11]

The obvious rhyme here is "daughter."

In Scotland, the narrative tension is largely generated by the juxtaposition of the glamourie with the lady's apparently sound-minded refusal to return home; each hearer must decide whether her seduction was of the will or of the heart. The American ballad has settled that question: in every text, the lady goes freely and deliberately. Narrative tension in the American ballad turns upon the question, "when, if ever, is it all right for a woman to make this choice?"

The resolution of this question is therefore the crux of most of the individual textual variations made by American singers. The group of texts described above, in which the lady is young, the lord older, and the Gypsy an attractive bachelor, constitutes the clear majority among the texts I have examined, but singers have handled this question in a number of other ways. Some texts defend the marriage and deplore the lady's abandonment of her family, and may focus either upon the lady or upon the lord as the central character, in doing so. Others cast the ballad narrative as a woman-to-woman warning against wanton infidelity, or simply against getting mixed up with footloose men. It may be sung as a men's song about the experience of abandonment, which follows the lord's actions and feelings with tremendous empathy. Other singers focus upon the comparison of the two men, and the lady's relationship with each.

Those whose hearts lie with the lord may sing in the first person, making him the "I" of the ballad. Even where this is not done, the amount of direct address spoken by the lord is frequently very high in these texts:

I rid all day and I rid all night,
And I overtook my daisy.
I found her lying on a cold river bank
In the arms of a Gypsen baby.[12]

Last night on a bed of down you lay,
Your baby lay by you.
Tonight you will lie on the cold, cold clay,
With the gypsy lad beside you.

Take off, take off your costly glove
That's made of Spanish leather,
Your hand I will grasp in a farewell clasp,
'Twill be farewell forever.[13]

And it's fare you well my dearest dear,
And it's fare you well forever,
And if you don't go with me now,
Don't let me see you never.[14]

Several texts collected from oral tradition in the early twentieth century give only a verse or two to the lovers' meeting, another to the lady's refusal to return, and devote the rest of the song entirely to the lord. Many include a verse in which he weeps at the sight of his wife in the Gypsy's arms. These texts strongly characterize the lord as a loving husband, good provider, and responsible father, while making it very clear that the lady prefers the Gypsy's kisses to the solid qualities of her husband.

He returned home that very same night
To take care of his baby.
He rode twelve miles in this lone state
And married another lady.[15]

He mounted on his iron-gray horse
That was so young and gaily,
He rode back to rock his babes
And dream of his lady,
And dream of his lady.[16]

Those texts that give their allegiance to the marriage but their focus to the lady often share this opinion of the lord, and of the "true love" that leads the lady to forsake lands, home, baby, and husband for the Gypsy's kisses. Many sing of her final regret for her foolish decision at the end of the song, as she looks back upon the wealth and comfort she once enjoyed.

O once I had a house and lands
And jewels very costly 0,
Now I sit me down in rags
Beside the gipsy draily 0.[17]

The texts that applaud the lady and the Gypsy as a satisfying, culturally acceptable pair of lovers make great effort, through  symbolism and descriptive contexting, to explain, justify, and remove the stigma from her choice. In addition to their moulding of the lord and lady into father and daughter and the Gypsy into a suitor, these texts may have the lady declare:

I never loved you in my life,
I never loved my baby;
I never loved my own wedded lord
As I love the Gypsy Davy.[18]

The majority of these texts end with the cold ground/featherbed comparison, thus closing the ballad on a note of commitment and willing sacrifice; of, as Bertrand Bronson said, "all for love, or the world well lost."[19]

The fullest feminine counterpart to the strong focus upon masculine concerns achieved in the texts sung "by" the lord is found, not in the pro-Gypsy texts, but in those that tell the story as a warning from one woman to another. The pro-Gypsy texts generally give equal time to all three characters, while the narrator remains in the background, but the women's warning texts often include at least one verse in which the narrator addresses the listener directly.

Now all ye wives that hear this tale
Be content to be a lady,
And never let your hearts be set
On a careless drunken Davy.[20]

Oh soon this lady changed her mind,
Her clothes grew old and faded,
Her hose and shoes fell off her feet,
And left them bare and naked.
Just what befell this lady now
I think it worth relating
Her gypsy found another lass,
And left her heart a-breaking.[21]

There are seven sweet gypsies in the North
They are calling to sweet Baltimore,
They'll sing you a song that will charm your heart,
And cause you to leave your husband.[22]

Each of these warnings, though given varying emphasis and expression, concerns t he temptation to abandon that which is lasting for a temporary or even illusory attraction. In at least one family (the Ingersolls of Pike County, Illinois and Scarsdale, New York, one of whose members sang for Dorothy Scarborough in the 1930's), the "careless drunken Davy" text was traditionally sung by the women for one another. The Ingersolls' version is humorous, rhythmic, and memorable; as a shared event or traditional performance, it may have taken the place of moralizing and serious discussions, effectively communicating
a message about temptation which was difficult for the mature to explain and for the young to understand. It may also have functioned as a moral and cultural reference point for the married women of the family, for whom the pressure of stagnation in a stable relationship and life-style was more imminent, and the danger of succumbing to the longing f or freedom, for
rest and change, or for a way to reassert one's individuality may sometimes have posed a real and pressing threat. Coyote tales, in which the main character indulges all kinds of desires that one cannot afford to act out as a member of a close-knit family and community, may be used b y the Navaho to teach children how to view and handle these desires, to reaffirm cultural principles and mores for the adults, and to allow all members of the audience (and the storyteller) to experience possibilities which they are discouraged from pursuing in their own lives.[23] Similarly, "Black Jack Davy" may provide a controlled
context in which women-and men-may play with and discuss the cultural taboos on adultery and abandonment, and the circumstances under which one might be tempted to break them. It would seem that singers may have made use of the ballad's basic structure as a vehicle for the expression of specific ways in which these taboos have touched, or threatened to touch, their own lives.

Probably the most widely shared characteristic of American texts is the use of parallel construction in the scenes of courtship and of confrontation. The list of things the lady is leaving is often repeated twice or even four times: the Gypsy asks her if she will leave her house and lands, her baby, and her lord, and she agrees; her husband  asks her how she can leave them, and she affirms that she has done so. This device appears more often than not in the texts I have examined, and is apparently satisfying for singers of all the interpretive persuasions outlined above. Whether the lady's choice is seen as a right to be celebrated or as a temptation to be deplored and feared, the risk and sacrifice it involves remain a powerful center of attention.
This parallelism is often strengthened by a second repetition: the lady takes off or changes her s hoes or gown to show that she is ready to go with the Gypsy, and takes off her gloves in final farewell to her husband.

"Well, you'd better leave your house and land,
You'd better leave your baby;
You'd better leave your own landlord
And go with Black Jack Davy,
And go with Black Jack Davy."

She put on her high-heel shoes
All made of Spanish leather
And then she kissed her sweet little babe
And then they parted forever,
And then they parted forever. (verses 4-5)

"Have you forsaked you house and land?
Have you forsaked your baby?
Have you forsaked your own true love
And gone with Black Jack Davy,
And gone with Black Jack Davy?"

"Yes, I forsaked my house and land,
Yes, I forsaked my baby;
Yes, I forsaked my own landlord
And gone with Black Jack Davy,
And gone with Black Jack Davy."

"You pull off those fine, finger gloves
That's made of Spanish leather
And give to me your lily-white hand
And we will part forever,
And we will part forever."

She pulled off her fine, finger gloves
All made of Spanish leather;
She gave to him her lily-white hand
And they were parted forever,
And they were parted forever. (verses 9-12)[24]

The textual linking between lord and Gypsy may be further strengthened by similar promises made by both. The Gypsy frequently swears that she "never will want for money," while the lord asks if she will not return to "the gold I have," the usual house and lands, or to some rich gift ("a silken bed and covers," "a room so neat") which he promises to give her.

The taking off or changing of clothing may also function as a symbol both of her rejection of the lord's provision and of her readiness to share the Gypsy's possessionless state. By this action, she expresses her trust in his ability to keep her from wanting for money--whether "want for" is understood as lack or desire. It also may symbolize her transference of sexual commitment and relationship, and her gift to the Gypsy of "a' the coat gaes 'round." The lord's common farewell request for her ungloved hand in parting is in some sense his recognition that he will no longer be able to ask her to take off her glove or anything else, and h is acceptance of her right to transfer that privilege to the Gypsy, which she did at the beginning of the ballad by the shedding of her shoes. The clothing motif thus links material providence with sexual submission as important cultural signals of romantic commitment. Combined with the motif of the featherbed versus the cold ground, it expresses the transition which is taking place in terms of who will provide for her, whose bed or arms she will sleep in, and for whom she will take off her clothes.

These consistent, repetitive elements of the ballad narrative thus act as a cameo of some o f the delicate, emotionally charged questions a bout love and marriage which seem central to its cultural functions in America. Is it ever acceptable for an unhappily married woman to be rescued by a lover, or is this release only for daughters and not for wives? Is it likely that a man willing to "rescue" another man's wife will be faithful to her himself, or is a relationship begun in adultery likely to end in it? Can a woman expect emotional stability from a footloose man, or will it be as hard for him to remain with one woman as it is to remain in one place?

These are some of the questions troubling to women which an individual singer, listener, family, or community might express and explore through singing "The Gypsy Laddie"; questions troubling to men are here as well. Can a man who gives his wife a nice home, money and pretty things, children, and security expect that, in return, she will remain happy, faithful, and loving?
There is perhaps a note of bewilderment and despair in the lord's questioning of his wife, which many men find painfully familiar:

O haven't ye got gold in store
And haven't ye got treasures three
Haven't ye got all that ye want
And a bonnie bonnie boy till amase ye wi.[25]

A single man may identify positively with the Gypsy, but he may also recognize a common m ale f ear i n the lady's final bitter words which appear in many texts collected from male singers:

Once I had a house and land,
A feather bed and money,
But now I'm come to an old straw pad
With nothing but Black Jack David.[26]

Will a woman who follows a man for true love's sake really remain with him if she does "want for money" after all? Can a man ever hope to be loved for who he is, rather than for what he gives?

III
Before World War II, when the majority of the texts consulted for this study were collected, divorce w as still scandalous, and runaway wives a rarity. Love that failed or ended w as cause for sadness, and in many situations also cause for shame, because adultery and abandonment simply were not supposed to happen.

Since the advent of Rogerian and Gestalt therapy, however, these taboos have been breaking down. Many psychologists and marriage counselors have begun to view marriage as a growth stage: an arrangement made in order to enrich the lives of both parties, which can and should b e dissolved if it ceases to do so. The picture o f the ideal marriage put forward in the 1960's and 1 970's, on television as well as in lay psychology and marriage books, is actually not far distant from the relationship enjoyed by the lady and the Gypsy in the ballad texts that favor it: it is based on love, rather than the need for security
or propriety;it is "free and easy" rather than difficult; and it is begun by mutual agreement, with equal value p laced upon t he woman's right to decide for herself what is best for her own life. It has also become fairly common and culturally acceptable, as it was during the settling of America, to choose to live without houses and lands and financial stability. Many a young Gypsy and his lady-in Europe as well as the United States--have backpacks, sleeping bags, an adventurous spirit, and not much else, seeking quite literally after the same kind so f happiness which the lady and the Gypsy in the ballads eek.

More than ever before in American culture, it is also becoming common and culturally acceptable for a woman to leave her husband and even her children for any or all of the reasons expressed in various texts of "The Gypsy Laddie." She may leave to get away from her traditional role and responsibilities to; get out from under her husband's protection and provision, if she finds them stifling; to seek whatever intangible qualities she longs for in her own life; or simply to take a lover. Material security is becoming increasingly available to women as salaries and job opportunities are equalized. The taboos probably d o
not need to be sung about as much because they exert far less pressure upon American lives than they once did. The drama of abandonment and adultery is readily available all around us, and the risk of scorn and poverty once involved in leaving one's husband has declined almost to the vanishing point.

Cartoonist Gary Trudeau, creator of the famous Doonesbury, a nationally syndicated strip which focuses on current political and cultural issues and tendencies, expressed some of the more literal connections between ballad and life today in a September 1979 episode. Joan Caucus, Jr., a college student, arrives unexpectedly at her mother's apartment, after not having seen or heard from her mother in several years. She is greeted at the door by her mother's lover, who calmly invites her in, and soon a stunned Joan Sr. is rushing home from her law office t o face the child she abandoned." After ten years of being a wife and mother," she explains, "I still didn't know who I was. And I wasn't getting any help from your father. So one day I walked out the kitchen door and flagged down two passing college boys on a motorcycle."[2 7] Doonesbury, it should b e remembered, is considered funny a s well as true.

Though "Black J ack D avy," like other traditional ballads, is not sung as widely today as it was prior to World War II, it is still comparatively well known. A variety of traditional versions have been recorded by popular artists, including Jean Ritchie, Woody and Arlo Guthrie, and Bryan Bowers, and it is therefore not uncommon for people under the age of thirty to have heard two or three different kinds of texts. In order to gain some insight into the current functions o f the ballad in American society, I conducted two small studies in Eugene, Oregon: a medium-sized city on the West Coast, with an economically and educationally varied population, I first made a random check among approximatelfyi fty people familiarw ith at least one version of the ballad, which most had learned at school or summer camp as children, or heard from a recording or from friends or local singers. I asked each person t o tell me what the ballad i s about, and found tremendous correlation between the answers I received and the life-style and values chosen by each of my informants.

The young people I talked with, many of them poor and decidedly
footloose,m ost frequentlya nswered", It's abouta mana nda womanw ho fall
in love andg o travellingt ogether."M ost of the marriedp eople,b oth young
ando lder,a nswered", It's abouta womanw ho leavesh erh usbandfo r another
man," often adding, "and then wishes she hadn't." One thoughtful young man, whose own wife had recently left him for her lover, taking their two year-olds on with her, answered", It's about decision making, and the importance of choosing on the basis of inner needs and values, rather than on the basis o f material needs."

In the second s tudy, I sang m y subjects fi ve versions, r anging f rom C hild's A text of the early e ighteenth c enturyt hrought he spectrumo f resolutionas nd
narrativpe erspectivepsr esenti n Americantr adition,a ndi ncludinga new version
written and recordedb y a Scottishp oet andm usician( MikeH eron,c ofoundero
f the IncredibleS tringB and)w hich was fairlyw ell known in the
UnitedS tatesi n the late 1960's.I gavem y subjectsn o promptingb, ut allowed
themt o guidet he conversationaf tere achs ong. (Thiss tudy,l ike the first,w as
carriedo ut in the field, with no formala nnouncementth at it was beingd one.
The interactions took place in markets, parks, and living rooms, and
sometimesf ormeda parto f a longerb allad-singinsge ssiono r conversation.)
Heron's version, sung in a style and metre approachingth e Irishj ig, is a
joyful, almostp astoralt reatmento f the balladn arratives, ung primarilyb y
BlackJ ackD avy himself.I t drew exclamationos f enthusiasma nd preference
overo therv ersionsf romv eryn earlya ll the subjectsI. t seemst o completea nd
makee xplicitt he processo f resolutionb egunl ong before,t hroughd escription
and characterizationin, the largestg roupo f field-collectedte xts I hade xamined:
the reshapingo f husbandin to father,w ife into daughter,a nd adultery
into wildernesrs omanceH. eron'sv ersiono pensw ith BlackJ ackD avy singing
alone:

Black Jack Davy is the name that I bear;
Been alone in the forest a long time,
But the time is coming when my lady I'll find,
And will love her, and hold her,
Singing through the green, green trees.
Well, the skin on my hands is like the leather I ride,
And my face is hard from the cold wind,
But my heart's a-warm with a softness that
Will charm a fair lady,
Singing through the green, green trees.

At this point the voice of Black Jack Davy is joined by a young soprano, and the middle verses are sung as a duet.

Well, fair Eloise rode out that day
From her fine, fine home in the morning,
With the flush of dawn all about her hair,
Drifting, floating,
Singing through the green, green trees.
Well, sixteens ummersw as all that she'd seen,
And her skin was soft as the velvet,
But she's forsakenh er fine, fine home,
And Black Jack Davy's
Singing through the green, green trees.
Last n ight she slept on a fine featherbed
Far, far from Black Jack Davy,
But tonight she'll sleep on the cold, cold ground,
And will love him, and hold him,
Singing through the green, green trees.

The next two verses are sung by male voices.

"Saddle my mare, my fine grey mare!"
Cried the lord of the house next morning,
"For my servants tell me my daughter's gone
With Black Jack Davy

Singing through the green, green trees!"
Well, he rode all day and he rode all night,
But he never did find his daughter;
He heard from afar, come drifting on the wind,
Two voices, laughing,
Singing through the green, green trees.
Black Jack Davy sings the final verse solo:
Oh, Black Jack Davy is the name that I bear;
Been alone in the forest for a long time,
But now I've found my lady so fair,
And I love her, and hold her,
Singing through the green, green trees.[28]

Heron's version was known to several of my subjects, and was the immediate favorite both among those who knew more than one version, and those who
heard this one first from me. Apparently its resolution of the ballad's broken
taboos and cultural conflicts-between true love and marriage, and how one can respond w hen their c laims c onflict--is highly satisfying, perhaps relieving, for the childrena ndg randchildreonf the singersw hose texts werec ollectedin
the 1930'sa nd1 950's.M osto f my subjectds elightedin the clear,u nquestioned
"rightness" Heron gives to "the virgin and the Gypsy" as a couple who
almostr ecognize,r athert hanc hoose,o ne anothera s the partnere achh asb een
waiting for, and his removal of the troubling question of the lord's pain and
the effecto f the lady'sc hoiceu ponh im fromt he song. Manys ubjectsw' ords
andf acesc learlyi ndicatedth at this versiono f the narrativwe as both attractive
andi mportanfto r them, andm anya skedm e to sing it twice andt hreet imes,
to write it down, to come and sing it for friends, to give it to them so that
they could remembera nd keep it.

This resonancoe f textualp referencwe ith life-stylea ndp ersonavl aluess eems
to have some bearingo n the recordedv ersionso f the ballada s well. Bryan
Bowers, who recorded a more traditional version in 1977, gave-like
Heron-more spokenl ines and dramaticfo cus to the Gypsyt han I foundi n
any of the pre-WorldW ar II texts I examined.I t is perhapsw orth noting
that, at the time of recordingb, oth Bowersa ndH eronw ere single,t ravelleda
good deal, and would haveb een consideredm emberso f the counterculture,
both by appearancaen dl ife-stylea ndb y self-descriptioJne. anR itchie, on the
otherh and,r ecordedo ne of the most powerfulo f the women'sw arningv ersions
as a wife and mother.

The tastes,f ears,a ndc oncernso f the audiencea ndo f individuasli ngersa rea
formativea ndn ot yet well studieda reaf or ballads cholarsto considerF. urther
work with specific clusters of cultural concerns might bring us to a better
understandinogf the ballada s a genre, and of the culturalv aluese xpressed,
questioned,a nd defendedi n particularte xts. Ballads cholarshipw ill benefit
from, and be madem oreu sefulb y, increaseda ndb ettera ttentiont o ethical,
ethnic,a ndp sychologicaclo ntextsi n its studyo f ballade volutiona ndc ultural
function.

Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's

Footnotes:

* An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference of the Sief Kommission far Volksdichtunhge ld at the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, August 8-10, 1979, and is forthcoming in the volume of the Proceedings of that conference, to be published by the University of Sheffield, England. I should like to acknowledge my gratitude to Professor J. Barre Toelken of the University of Oregon and Professor John D. Niles of the University of California at Berkeley, who read
earlier drafts of this paper, and made many invaluable contributions to its final form.
 

1. "Johnny Faa, the Gypsy Laddie," Ramsay's Tea-TableM iscellanyv, ol. iv, 1740. Rpt. (from the edition of 1763, p. 47) in Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Boston: 1882-98), Vol. 2, pp. 65-66.

2 The records of this and other Gypsy trials are to be found in Robert Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland, From A. D. M. CCCC LXXXVIII To A.D. M.DC. XXIV, Embracing th e Entire R eigns of James IV. and V., Mary Q ueen o f Scots, a nd JamesV I. Compiledfromth e OriginalR ecordsa ndM SS., withH istoricaNl otes and Illustrations4. vols. (Edinburgh: William Tait, and London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1833), vol. 3, p. 201.

3. Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland, p. 201.

4 Child is apparently following Robert Burns's assurance, given to the editor of The Scots Musical
Museum, that "neighboring tradition strongly vouches for the truth of this story." Child quotes this
passage, and notes that Lady Cassilis's name was inserted into the Museum's text at Burns's direction.

5 Robert Chambers, The Pictureo f Scotland( Edinburgh: n. pub., 1827), 2 vols., n.p. Quoted in Alexander
Whitelaw, The Book of ScottishB allads,C ollecteda nd Illustratedw, ith Historicala nd CriticalN otices.
(Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1857), p. 28.

6 BarreT oelken, "How BalladsC hange: An IllustratedL ecture," in The Oregon C urriculum: L: iterature
I, series ed. Albert R. Kitzhaber (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969), phonodisc @4809406,
12" LP.

[ footnotes 7 & 8 missing]

9 "Black Jack Davy," Dorothy Scarborough, A Song-Catcherin the SouthernM ountains( New York:
Columbia University Press, 1937), p. 412 (b); text, p. 218. "Sung by Selma Clubb, South Turkey Creek,
Leicester, N.C., c. 1932." Rpt. in BertrandH arris Bronson, The TraditionaTl uneso f the Child Ballads,4
vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952) vol. 4, text 126, p. 249.

10S ee John S. Farmera nd W. E. Henley, A Dictionaryo f Slang and its AnaloguesP ast andP resent:a DictionaryH
istoricaal nd Comparativoef the HeterodoxS peecho f All Classeso f SocietyforM oret han ThreeH undred
Years, 5 vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1902; rpt. New York: Kraus Reprint Corp., 1965),
vol. 4, p. 99.


11. George and GerryA rmstrong," BlackJ ack Davy," on Simple G ifts: A nglo-American Fo lksongs, Folkways Records FA2335, 12" LP.
12.  "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday, or, The Gypsy L addie, "S harp MSS., 4615/3224, Clare College
LibraryC, ambridge". Sungb y Mrs.M argareCt alloway,B urnsvilleN, .C., Septembe1r 6, 1918," Rpt.
in Bronson, vol. 4, text 7, p. 204.

13 "GypsyL addie,"R obertS hifflett,L C Archiveo f AmericanF olkS ong 12,004( A2). Rpt. in Bronson,
vol. 4, text 83, p. 231.
14 "The GypsyL addie,"C hild'st ext 200-J." a. Writtend own by Newton Pepoun,a s learnedfr oma
boy with whom he went to schooli n StockbridgeM, assachusettasb, out1 845. b. Fromt he singingo f
Mrs. Farmerb, orn in Maine,a s learnedb y her daughter,a bout1 840." Child, vol. 2, p. 72.
15 "Gypsy Davey," Helen Hartness Flanders,A ncientB alladsT raditionallSyu ng in New England,5 vols.
(Philadelpia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963), vol. 3, p. 207. " 'Recited by Oliver Jenness,
Chase's Pond Section, York Village, Maine, as learned from his grandfather, who was born in York,
Maine. Mr. Jenness was 89 years old.' M. Olney, collector; September 25, 1947."
16 Buck Buttery, "Black Jack Davy," on LC Archive of American Folk song 11,909 (B24), collected
by Marvin Wallace. Rpt. in Bronson, vol. 4, text 116, pp. 244-5.

17 Mrs. Oleava Houser, "Gypsy Draily," on LC Archive of AmericanF olk Song 11,908 (B34), collected by Mary Celestia Parker. Rpt. in Bronson, vol 4, text 102, p. 238.

18 "Gypsy Davey," John Harrington Cox, TraditionaBl allads Mainlyfrom West Virginia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University P ress, 1939), p. 31; and 1964 (ed. George Boswell),p . 40. Rpt. in Bronson, vol. 4, text 9, p. 205, with the followingn ote appended": Also in Dorothy Scarborough A, Song-Catcher in the S outhern Mountainpsp, . 414 (G) and2 24. Contributed in 1925 by Mrs. Margaret Widdemer Schauffler of New York City; obtained from Miss L ucia S anderson, Cleveland, Ohio, who learnedit froma n English-woman. Tune noted (From M rs. Schauffler's si nging?) b y Frances Sanders, Morgantown, W. Va."

20 "The Lady's Disgrace," Scarborough, p. 413 (F); text, p. 233. "Sung by Mrs. Genevieve Ingersoll, Scarsdale, N.Y., c. 1932. Learned from her grandmother's cousin, o f Pike County, Ill.; traditional in her family." Rpt. in Bronson, vol. 4, text 32, pp. 214-15.

21 Jean Ritchie, "Gypsy Laddie," on Folkways recording FA 2301 (Al), ed. Kenneth S. Goldstein, 12" LP. Also in Bronson, vol. 4, text 38, pp. 116-17.

22 [The Gypsy Laddie], A rthurK yle Davis, TraditionBala llados f Virginia (C ambridge, MA: Harvard
UniversityP ress,1 929), pp. 591 (D) and4 27. "Contributed by John Stone, November3 , 1920, from
the singingo f MissesF anniea ndH attieV ia, StageJ unction, Va.; theyl earnedit fromM rs.O rillaK eeton
in AlbemarleC ounty." Rpt. in Bronson,v ol. 4, text 91, p. 234.

23 See B arre T oelken," The 'Pretty L anguages o f  Yellowman': Genre, Mode, and Texture in Navaho Coyote Narratives,"G enre2, , 3 (September1 969), pp. 211-235.
24 "Gypsy Davy," Mellinger Edward Henry, Folk-Songs from t he Southern H ighlands (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1938), p. 110. "Sung by Mrs. Samuel Harmon, Cade's Cove, Tenn., August 12, 1930." Rpt. in Bronson, vol. 4, text 125, pp. 248-9.

25 [The Gypsy Laddie], Gavin Greig MSS., I, p. 154; text, book 14, vol. 4, p. 77. Also in Greig and Alexander K eith, LastL eaveso f TraditionBala lladsa ndB alladA irs (AberdeenU: niversityo f Aberdeen,
1925),p . 218 (Ib). "Sungb yJ. W. SpenceF, yvie,A pril1 906." Rpt. in Bronsonv, ol. 4, text 45, p. 219.
(Note that this informant is male. T his verse a ppears in question a nd answer f orm in another t ext collected in the North of Scotland, publishedin JohnO rd, The BothyS ongsa ndB allads[A berdeenP: aisley
& A. GardnerL, td., 1930], p. 411, but the nameo f the singeri s not given.)

26 "Black Jac k D avid," BrownM SS.,1 6 a 4 J (bis).A lsoi nJ anS chinhane, d., The F rank C. Brown Collection
of North Carolina Folklore, vol. 4, The Music of the Ballads (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,
1957), p. 88. "Sung by Dr. I. G. Greer. Collected by C. Alphonso Smith and Thomas Smith, n.d.
Anotherc opy, unidentifiedin the BrownM SS., 16 a 4 J, nearlyi denticawl ith this, probablya lsof rom
Dr. Greer." Bronson, vol. 4, text 120, p. 246.

27 G. B. Trudeau, "Doonesbury," September 22, 1979. United Features Syndicate; Eugene Register-
Guard, Eugene, Oregon, Section C, p. 8.

28 Mike Heron, "BlackJ ackD avy," sung by Robin Williamsona nd LikkiL ambertT. he Incredible
String Band, I Looked Up, Elektra 74061 ET-84112, 12" LP.