Lady Margaret- (MO) pre1906 Belden B
[From Ballads and Songs; Belden 1940 collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society. Belden's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
Fair Margaret and Sweet William (child 74) [Belden- Notes from Ballads and Songs- 1940]
Child remarks that this is 'a favorite of the stalls,' a fact which perhaps accounts in part for its frequency in American collections. He gives one text (V 293-4) from Massachusetts. Since the completion of his work it has been reported from tradition in Yorkshire (JFSS II 289-90) and l)orset (JFSS III 64-6), and on this side of the Atlantic from Newfoundland (tr.SN 94-8), Nova Scotia (BSSNS 25-6), Ontario (JAFL XXXI 74, a fragment), Maine (BBNI 134-9), Vermont (VFSB 213-4), Virginia (TBV 221-39, Sharpl( I 139-40, 143-5, SCSM 103-5), West Virginia (FSS 65-77), Kentucky (JAFL XXIII 381-2, LT 94-9, FSKM 69-70, SharpK I 134-5, 142-3, besides a text introduced into a story by Julian Ralph in Harper's Monthly for July 1903),
Tennessee (SharpK I 132-4, 140-2), North Carolina (JAFL XXVIII 154-5, SharpK I135-9, 145, FSSM 2-3), Mississippi (FSM 87-90), Ohio (JAFL XXXV 340-2), Indiana (JAFL XITVIII 301-3), Illinois (TSSI 141-2), the Ozarks (OASPS 181-3), and Missouri (JAFL XIX 28I-2; w hether the text printed by Kittredge in JAFL XXX 303-4 is to be assigned to Missouri or to Indiana
is not clear). The rather puzzling opening scene in Child A and in many American texts is probably understood by singers of the ballad as an answer to sorne question asked by Margaret's father; it is specifically so presented in FSS E. Several texts-perhaps feeling that this opening is not intelligible- have dropped it, beginning with Margaret looking out of her bower window
and seeing William and his bride going by to church. Generally we are told that after this Margaret is seen no more, leaving it to be inferred that she dies of grief; but a good many texts imply, and some say, the Missouri-Indiana text in JAFL XXX 303-4, directly say, that she commits suicide by throwing herself down from her high window. The visit of Margaret's ghost, William's
report next morning of a dream that his bower was full of red (sometimes white) swine and his bride-bed full of blood, and the rose-and-briar ending are fairly persistent features of the story. The phrase 'with the leave of my (wedded) lady' of the Child versions has been expanded in some of the American texts for a formal asking of his lady's permission to visit the dead Margaret.
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B. 'Lady Margaret.' Communicated in 1906 to C. H. Williams by J. G. Scott, who in turn got it from 'a neighbor girl who learned it in the hill country of Bollinger and Perry Counties.' The girl had 'never seen it in print.' As frequently in popular tradition, the story has been dramatized by transposing it to the first person except at the beginning and the end.
Lady Margaret was sitting in her high brown chair,
A-combing back her hair;
Who did she spy but Sweet William and his bride
From the churchyard drawing nigh.
She first threw down her ivory comb,
And then threw back her hair;
Then she fell from her high brown chair-
Lady Margaret was heard no more.
The day being gone, the night coming on
While all men were asleep,
Who did I spy but Lady Margaret's ghost
A-standing by my bed-feet.
Saying, 'How do you like your bed,
And how do you like your sheet,
And how do you like that new-wedded bride
That lies in your arms asleep?'
'It's very well that I like my bed,
And better I like my sheet;
But best of all's that pretty fair maid
That stands at my bed-feet.'
The night being gone, the day corning
While all men were awake,
Then I asked my wedded bride
If Lady Margaret I might see.
I went till I came to Lady Margaret's
And loudly I tringled on the ring;
Who was there but Lady Margaret's brother
To rise and let me in?
'Neither she's in her kitchen,
Nor neither she's in her hall,
But she's in her cold coffin,
Her face turned toward the wall.'
'Oh, where is Lady Margaret ?' I said,
Is she in her kitchen or is she in her hall,
Or is she in her high brown chair
Among her wedding maids all?'
'Go unfold those winding sheets
That are so nice and fine,
So I may kiss those lily-white lips
That often have kissed mine.'
First he kissed those lily-white lips;
The next he kissed was her hand;
Again he kissed those lily-white lips
And pierced his heart within.
They buried Lady Margaret in the church-yard,
They buried Sweet William in the choir.
From Lady Margaret's breast there grew a red, red rose
And out of Sweet William's a green brier.
. . . .
. . . .
They twingled and they twangled to the door, church tower top
For all true lovers to admire.