Lily O- Gordon (NC) 1928 Sutton; Brown B
[Brown Collection of NC Folklore, 1952. There are two versions in Brown Collection of NC Folklore; they both appear in Volume 2 and also in Volume 4 (music). I'm dating version A based on the collecting of Sutton in the early 1920s. Version B is dated 1928.
R. Matteson 2014]
5. The Cruel Brother (Child 11)
Although not very old, at least by the record (the earliest recorded text is Child's G, from Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776), The Cruel Brother' was widely known in the earlier nineteenth century; Child has eleven versions (some of them fragmentary), mostly Scotch but including two from Ireland and one from the west of England, where it was "popular among the peasantry" about 1846. But it is disappearing. It is included in Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs and in Kidson's Garland of English Folk Songs but not in either of Greig's collections nor in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society. In this country it has been reported only twice: by Barry (JAFL xxviii 300-1) from someone in Boston in whose family it had been "traditional for three generations," and by Sharp from North Carolina (SharpK I 36-7). Both of these belong to the same tradition, which is — to judge from the refrain — that of Child's J, from Ireland, though possibly from the Scotch or West of England forms. There are three sisters and three wooers in all the American texts, as there are also in Child's F, G, I, J. K ; presumably simply because ballad singers are fond of series of three, for only one lady and one wooer are of significance in the story. There are two texts in the present collection, both secured by Mrs. Sutton in the mountain country of western North Carolina.
B. 'Lily O.' From the singing of Mrs. Becky Gordon, Saluda Mountain, Henderson county, July 1928. Mrs. Gordon "sings every song I have been able to collect heretofore, and then some," Mrs. Sutton wrote to Dr. Brown. A fuller and more coherent version than A. The "block" of stanza 9, from which to mount a horse, is. I believe, American; it appears in no other version. The refrain is the same.
Listen: http://contentdm.library.appstate.edu/docapp/abrams/field_recordings/cruel_brother.html
1. There were three sisters a-playin' of ball,
O Lily O
There were three lawyers a-courtin' them all.
Lily O, sweet hi O
2 The first one come were dressed in white,
The next one came were dressed in black.
3 The next one come were dressed in blue,
Sayin', 'Now, my dear, I've come for you.'
4 'Oh, you must ask my father dear,
You must ask my mother too.
5 'You must ask my sister Ann,
And you must ask my brother John.'
6 'I have asked your father dear.
And I have asked your mother too ;
7 'And I have asked your sister Ann ;
Your brother John I did forget.'
8 Her father led her down the stairs,
Her mother led her to the gate.
9 Her sister Ann went to the block,
Her brother John for to help her up.
10 As she stooped down to kiss him sweet,
And with his knife he stobbed her deep.
11 'Ride on, ride on, my daughter dear,'
'No, I must he and bleed and die.'
12 'Oh, what do you will to your father dear?'
'My house and home that I leave here.'
13 'And what do you will to your mother dear?'
'My bloody clothes that I leave here.'
14 'And what do you leave to your sister Ann?'
'My silver rings and golden fan.'
15 'Oh, what do you will to your brother John?'
'A rope and gallows to hang him on.'
16 'What do you will to your brother John's wife?'
'Pain and sorrow all her life.'
17 'What do you will to your brother John's child?'
'All this wide world to spend its life.'