Little Margaret- Betty Smith (NC) 1977 REC
[From Betty Smith recording "For My Friends of Song"; Tape also LP June Appal 018 (LP vinyl record) 1977. Text is provided from Mudcat. I do not have a cop of the recording to check it.
This is the standard "Little Margaret version" from Lunsford/Sheila Kay Adams/Obray Ramsey and all. Notes below are from an interview.
R. Matteson 2014]
Southern Appalachian Storytellers: Interviews with Sixteen Keepers of the Oral Tradition- Page 195; Betty Smith interview:
When he goes to find her, she's in her coffin. One old ballad singer said, “You know, she jumped out the window!” It doesn't say that, but he thinks that's what happened, so that's what happened. But you understand by the time you get through that she saw him and she died of love and jumped out of the window or whatever you want it to be, and then he sees her and he's sorry.
In “Little Margaret” it says he kissed her lily white hand, her cheek, and then he kissed her clay, cold lips. If you kiss a dead person, you die; and he falls in her arms asleep. It means he died when he actually kissed her.
"Little Margaret" - Sung by Betty Smith to the tune of "Shady Grove"
Little Margaret sitting in her high hall chair
A-combing her long yellow hair
She saw Lord William and his new-made bride
Riding down the road so near.
She threw down her ivory comb
She threw back her long yellow hair
And out of the room this lady ran
She was never anymore seen there.
It was all lately in the night
When they were fast asleep
Little Margaret appeared all dressed in white
A-standing at their bed-feet.
It's how do you like your snow white pillow
And how do you like your sheets
And how do you like the new-made bride
That's lying in your arms asleep?
It's fine I like my snow white pillow
And it's well I like my sheets
But best of all's the fair young maid
That's standing at my bed feet.
He's called the servant for to go
And saddle the dappled roan
He's rode to Little Margaret's house that night
And knocked on the door alone.
Oh is Little Margaret in the house
Or is she in the hall?
Little Margaret's in her coal-black coffin
With her face turned towards the wall.
Fold back, fold back those ivory shrouds
Be they ever so fine
I want to kiss those clay-cold lips
They'll never anymore kiss mine.
It's once he's kissed her snow-white brow
And twice he's kissed her cheeks
Three times he's kissed her clay-cold lips
And he fell in her arms asleep.