Lady Margret [My title]- Hensley (KY) 1910 Sharp B
[My title. This was not collected by Sharp but was probably supplied to Campbell from Hindeman area by another collector. Sharp had the melody in his MS but not the text (Bronson). From: English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; 1917 Sharp/Campbell and 1932 edition, edited by Karpeles. All of Sharp's versions use the generic title, Fair Margaret and Sweet William. Fair Margaret is not the name that is sung, usually it's Lady (Liddy/Lydia) Margaret (Marget/Margret).
Notes from the 1932 edition follow. The second stanza is really two stanzas as found from a relative in 1917 from Sharp's MS. See footnote. Cf. Hensley 1917.
An additional opening stanza is found in Bronson 16. This stanza is Sharp MS 3870/. Sung by Mrs. Sophie Annie Hensley, Oneida, Ky., August. 17, 1917.
Sweet William rose up one bright May morning
And dressed himself in blue
What do you know of long love lying
Between Lady Margret and you?
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
No. 20. Fair Margaret and Sweet William.
Texts without tunes: — Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 74. Ashton's Century of Ballads, p. 345. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, No. 7. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 281; xxiii. 381; xxviii. 154; xxx. 303.
Texts with tunes : — Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, i. 117. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii. 289; iii. 64. Folk-Songs of England, i, No. 14. Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques, pp. 117 and 118. Kidson's Garland of English Folk Songs, p. 30. ChappelPs Popular Music of the Olden Times, i. 382. C. Sharp's English Folk Songs (Selected Edition), ii. 13. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 65 and 522 (see also further references). Wyman and Brockway's Lonesome Tunes, p. 94. journal of American Folk-Lore, xxxi. 74; xxxv. 340. Musical Quarterly, January 1916. British Ballads from Maine, p. 134. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 221 and 570. McGilPs Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 71.
Yates: They (Ramseys) reminded me of something that Cecil Sharp had once said about the Hensley family of Carmen. "My experience has been very wonderful so far as the people and their music is concerned...I spent three days, from 10a.m. to 5p.m., with a family in the mountains consisting of parents and daughter, by name Hensley. All three sang and the father played the fiddle. Maud and I dined with them each day, and the rest of the time sat on the verandah while the three sang and played and talked, mainly about the songs." One ballad, collected from Rosie Hensley, was Fair Ellender and Sweet William, a version of which I recorded from Evelyn. [Are KY families related? Sharp D and E were taken from the Carmen, NC Hensley family.]
Lady Margret [My title]- Hensley (KY) 1910 Sharp B
I.e. with tonic D. If C be tonic, Mode 1, a + b (ionian).
[Sweet William rose up one bright May morning
And dressed himself in blue
What do you know of long love lying
Between Lady Margret and you?]
1. Lady Margret was sitting in the new church door,
A combing her yellow hair.
And down she threw her high-row comb
And out of the door she sprung.
2 O mother, O mother, I saw a sight [1]
Which I never shall see any more.
She dies, she never drew another breath,
And she never lived any longer.
3 Willy rode on home that night
And quickly fell asleep,
Bothered and pestered all night
In a dream he dreamed before.
4 Early, early he rose up,
Dressed himself in blue;
Asked of his new wedded wife
To ride one mile or two.
5 They rode on till they got to Lady Margret's gate,
Tingled at the wire;
There was none so ready to let them in
But Lady Margret's mother dear.
6 Is she in her sewing-room?
Nor in her chamber asleep?
Or is she in her dining-room,
A lady before them all?
7 She is not in her sewing-room,
Nor in her chamber asleep;
Although she's in her dying-room,
A lady before them all.
8 Her father opened the coffin lid,
Her brother unwrapped the sheet;
He kneeled and kissed her cold clay lips
And died all at her feet.
9 They buried Lady Margret in the new church yard,
And Willy close by her side;
And out of her heart sprang a red rose,
And out of his a green briar.
10 They grew and grew so very high,
Until they couldn't grow any higher;
They looped and tied in a true love knot
The red rose and green briar
1. From Sharp MS Sophie Hensley:
2. Saying: Mother, O mother, I saw a sight
I never shall see no more.
She saw nothing but her own true love
And the preacher a-riding by.
3. She died, she never lived any longer,
And she never drew another breath.
It was but seeing the preacher and her love
Which caused Lady Margaret's death.