Lord Darnal's Wife- Ramsay (OK) 1920 Randolph B
[My title. Fragment from Ozark-Folksongs; Vol. 1 1946 Vance Randolph. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
LITTLE MATHY GROVES
This is the ancient "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" ballad (Child, English and, Scottish Popalar Ballads, 1882-1898, No.81) quoted in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle" (Act V, scene 3), which was written about 1611. The songis entered to Francis Coules in the Stationers' Registers, June 24, 1630. For American texts see Kittredge (JAFL 30, 1917, pp. 309-317), Campbell and Sharp (English Folk Songs from the Southern Appctachians, 1917, No. 20), Pound (American Ballads and Songs, 1922, No. 15), Cox (Falk Songs of the South, 1925, pp. 94-95), Smith (South Carolina Ballads, 1928, pp. 125-128), Davis (Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929, pp. 289-301), Chappell (Folk-Songs of Roanoke and the Albemerle. 1939, pp. 29-31), Eddy (Ballads and Songs from Ohio, 1939, pp. 48-51), Gardner (Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan, 1939, pp. 46-49), Belden (Ballads and Songs, 1940 pp. 57-60), and the Brown collection.
B. [Lord Darnal's Wife] Contributed by Mrs. Lucille Ramsay, Tulsa, Okla., July 26, 1920. Mrs. Ramsay learned it near Carthage, Mo., about 1898. She remarked that it was a "very dirty song," and that she would not sing some of the verses even if she were able to recall them.
The first come down all dressed in gold,
The next come down in green,
The next come down was Lord Darnal's wife,
As fair as any queen, queen, queen,
As fair as any queen.
And then they got to hugging and kissing,
Bye and bye they went to sleep,
And when they waked up they saw Lord Darnal
A-standing by their bed's feet, feet, feet,
A-standing by their bed's feet.