Lord Banyan- Dusenbury (Mo.) 1876 Randolph B
[From: Randolph, V, 1982. Ozark Folksongs, Illinois Press, Urbana 1946; Version B. Randolph's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
Randolph wrote: Sung by Judy Jane Whittaker, Anderson, Mo, May 12, 1928
The song which Ozark people know as "Lord Henry and Lady Margaret" or "Lord Henry and Lydia Margaret" is a fairly good version of "Young Hunting" (Child 68). For other American texts see Kittredge (1907) and (1917); Campbell and Sharp; Cox (1925); Sandberg (1927); R Smith (1928); A. K. Davis (1929); L Chappell; Treat; Belden (1940); G Anderson (1942); Morris 91944. As "loving Henry", "Lord Bonnie", etc, this ballad appears in the Brown Collection.
This otherwise excellent ballad story may bewilder the reader who is unaware that in most variants Henry had told Magaret that it is his fairest lady in old Scotland - not his old parents - who is awaiting his return. Otherwise her motive for murder seems weak indeed. In some versions the dramatic intensity is heightened by Henry's informing Margaret as he is dying that he really loved only her. The sequence of stanzas about the parrot seems to be a borrowing from from another ballad, "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight."
B. Lord Banyan- Professor F. M. Goodhue, Mena, Ark., contributes the following text, which he obtained from Mrs. Emma L. Dusenbury, also of Mena. Mrs. Dusenbury called the song "Lord Banyan," and said that she learned it near Jefferson City, Mo., in 1876. Randolph B
Light down, light down, Lord Banyan, she said,
An' stay all night with me,
An' the finest lady in old Scotland
Will await this night for thee.
I can't light down, I can't light down,
Nor I cannot stay with thee,
For the finest lady in old Scotland
Is a-waitin' this night for me.
As he stooped over in his leather
From his saddle all for to take a kiss,
She had a knife both long and sharp
An' she kissed him to the heart.
Ride on, ride on, Lord Banyan, she said,
Till you ride beneath the sun,
The fairest lady in old Scotland
This night will weep alone.
I can't ride on, I can't ride on,
Nor I can't ride beneath the sun,
Is there any physician in this town?
I pray you bring him here.
There is no physician here in this town,
Nor none nowheres around,
So you must die, you false-hearted man,
An' be laid beneath the ground.
Just betwixt midnight an' day
She called on her true house maids,
Here lays a dead man in my hall,
I pray you take him away.
One took him by the golden yellow locks,
An' the other by his feet,
An' throwed him down in a three-story well,
Just thirty furlongs deep.
Lay there, lay there, you false-hearted man,
Till the flesh rots off your bones,
An' the fairest lady in old Scotland
Will always weep alone.
Hush up, hush up, my pretty little parrot,
Pray tell no tales on me,
An' I will give you a cage of gold
To hang all in your tree.
I can't hush up, I can't hush up,
No, I do not want no tree,
For you have killed your own true love,
I'm afraid you will kill me.
It s if my bow was already bent,
My arrow was in its string,
I'd let it fly at your golden yellow breast
All through the leave so green.
It's if your bow was already bent,
An' your arrow was in its string,
I would rise an' fly so far above the sky
That I would nevermore be seen!