Lady Marg'ret- Sutton (NC) c.1920s Brown D
[Lady Marg'ret is my title, Brown has Sweet Willie; From the Frank Brown Collection of NC Folklore; 1952, vol. 2. This was collected by Maude Minish Sutton c.1920s. Music is provided at the bottom of the page. An online bio follows, then Brown editors notes
R. Matteson 2014]
Maude Minish Sutton of Caldwell County, N.C., was a teacher, writer, and folklorist. She taught in Chapel Hill, China Grove, Avery County, and Lenoir, N.C. Sutton was also a contributor to North Carolina newspapers and on the staff of the Lenoir News-Topic. She married Dennis Howard Sutton. The collection is a variety of Sutton's writings and papers. It contains a typed copy of A Very Great Lady, a short story by Sutton about collecting family papers to solve a mystery, and a number of folklore materials including notes on folk games, ballads of Avery County Sutton collected in 1917 and 1918, notes on cotton baron Simpson Bobo Tanner, and a list of charter members of the North Carolina Folklore Society. Three notebooks are available on microfilm which contain details of a 1921 hiking trip, Sutton's poetry, and newspaper clippings. Maude Minish Sutton died in 1936. A book titled, A woman of the hills: The work of Maude Minish Sutton, was written by Daniel W Patterson in 1977.
D. [Lady Marg'ret] Another version reported by Mrs. Sutton, but it does not appear from whom she got it. Only part of it is given, the rest summarized.
1. Lady Marg'ret sat at her bower window,
A-combing her golden hair ;
And there she saw sweet William's bride
As they were riding near.
2 Down she laid her ivory comb
And up she hound her hair;
She went into her bower
And never more came there.
3 'God give you joy, you lovers there,
In bride-bed fast asleep;
For I am gone to a grass-green grave,
Wrapped in my winding sheet.'
"In the verses that follow," Mrs. Sutton notes, "the groom dreamed of Lady Marg'ret's death, and asked permission of his bride to go and see her. When he reached the bower he was greeted by seven brothers":
Then up and spoke her seven brothers,
Making a bitter moan.
'Go home and kiss your nut-brown bride
And leave our sister alone.'
D. 'Sweet Willie.' Procured by Mrs. Maude M. Sutton. Singer, date, and place not given.
The MS score No. 2 gives the same text as that of the C version. The text used here, however, was taken from the recording of Mrs. Sutton's second version as found on cylinder 9-X. The tune is almost identical with that of her first version. Scale: Hexachordal. Tonal Center: c. Structure: mm1n (2,2,4) = barform.