Lord Lovel- Fish (NH-VT) c1850 Flanders C
[My date. From Flanders; Ancient Ballads; 1966, version C. Coffin's notes follow. Lena M. Bourne, born April 10, 1873 in Blackbrook, New York, was the daughter of Stratton Bourne and Cynthia Abel Bourne. Her father was born in northern Vermont but whose forebears were the early settlers of Bourne, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Notes from AdirondackMusic.com immediately follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
Lena Bourne Fish or Grammy Fish as she was known grew up in the town of Black Brook and spent the first 24 years of her life in the northeastern section of the Adirondack Park It was there that she inherited an immense song repertoire that had been kept in her family for more than two hundred years Song collectors Anne and Frank Warner Helen Hartness Flanders and Marguerite Olney visited and recorded Mrs Fish s singing in the early 1940s when she was living in East Jaffrey New Hampshire in her late sixties She sang nearly 100 songs for the Warners over four recording sessions and it is from those recordings that we have the two songs below Lena learned her songs from many places but like numerous other Adirondack singers an early and very important source was her own family Her father Stratton Bourne was a lumber salesman in the Adirondacks supplying wood to the iron trade for charcoal He had songs Irish and otherwise he d learned from the men he worked with and encountered in the woods Uncle Butler Bourne who lived alone on Whiteface Mountain in his later years was said to have had a chest full of songs that he passed down to his nieces Mrs Fish no doubt learned pieces from other family members neighbors and friends as well Mrs Fish who was often ill and fearful for her health as she grew older had something of a miraculous recovery after her visits from folksong collectors The attention created interest from the community at large in her songs which led to public performances at community events and schools She started a mimeographed song newsletter called The Dreamernd the last years of her life were busy and happy. With several notebooks filled with handwritten lyrics and a head full of tunes and song associations, Lena Bourne Fish took her role as keeper of an old and rare repertoire seriously, and old and rare it was; many of her songs have not been found elsewhere in North America.
Lord Lovel
(Child 75)
Phillips Barry in British Ballads from Maine, 145-47, gives a good history of this song, telling of its popularity among the nineteenth-century printers and the many uses it served for political parody and music hall gaiety. The American versions which are known wherever ballads are sung almost all stem from the same tradition as Child H, an 1846 London broadside. American printers reproduced texts from this tradition throughout the period between the Mexican and Civil Wars. The Flanders versions are in no way exceptional and are much what one would expect to find. As with texts from other areas, the original name of the church, St. Pancras (see E), has undergone radical modification, but all in all proximity to print has held variation to a minimum. The tune to "Lord Lovel" is also consistent. In South Carolina Ballads (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), 121, Reed Smith comments that "the difference between reading [Lord Lovel] as a poem and singing it is the difference between tragedy and comedy." The use of a tune that is too light for the story no doubt accounts for the tact that parodies have turned up in Maine, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Missouri, among other places, in this country (see Coffin, 79, for a bibliography) and in Scotland (see Greig and Keith, 57) abroad. Bibliographical references can be had in Coffin, 78-79 (American); Dean-Smith, 85 (English); and Greig and Keith, 57-58 (Scottish).
The five tunes given here are related, four of them very closely. Only the Fish tune diverges. In order to save repetition of references, the related tunes for the group consisting of the Grindell, Moore, Britton, and Pierce. Tunes are given here: SAA,20; SSC, 122; Sharp , 149 (C), 149 (D and E), 116 (distant), and 147 (distant); AA, 124; DV,524, No. 20 (E, L, and O); EO, 39, 40; BES, 139 (not too close); BI, 92. obviously this tune group is very widespread and its correlation with the Child 75 text is great.
C. Lord Lovel. As sung by Mrs. Lena Bourne Fish of East Jaffrey, New Hampshire, who learned it from her grandfather. Her address was furnished by Mrs. Carl L. Schrader, chairman of Fine Arts, General Federation of Women's Clubs.
M. Olney, Collector; May 8, 1940; Structure: A B C Dl D2 (2,2,2,3,2); Rhythm C and D; Contour: undulating; Scale: major; t.c. F. For mel. rel. see SAA, 59 ("The Golden Vanity"); and EO, 41 (distant-note the octave leap).
Lord Lovel stood at his castle gate,
Combing his milk-white speed,
When along came Lady Nancy Bell,
A-wishing her lover good speed, speed, speed,
A-wishing her lover good speed.
"Where are you going?" Lady Nancy said.
"Are you going far?" said she.
"I am going, my dear Lady Nancy Bell,
Strange countries for to see, to see,
Strange countries for to see."
"'When will you come back?" Lady Nancy said,
"How long will you be gone?" said she.
"In a year or two or three at the most
I'll return to you, Lady Nancy, -cee, cee,
I'll return to you, Lady Nancy."
He had not been gone but a year and a day
Strange countries for to see,
When languishing thoughts came into his mind,
Lady Nancy Bell he would see, see, see
Lady Nancy Bell he would see.
He rode, he rode on his milk-white steed,
Till he came to London town;
There he heard St. Vernon's bells,
And the people all a-mourning around, around,
And the people all a-mourning around.
"Is anybody dead?" Lord Lovel said.
"And who is it, pray tell me."
"A lord's daughter is buried today,
The rich and fair Lady Nancy, -cee, -cee,
The rich and fair Lady Nancy."
He ordered the grave to be opened forthwith,
And the shroud to be folded down.
Then he kissed her clay-cold lips
Till the tears came trickling down, down, down,
Till the tears came trickling down.
Lady Nancy died the same as today,
Lord Lovel on the morrow;
Out of Lady Nancy's grave sprang a rose,
And out of Lord Lovel's a briar, sweet briar,
And out of Lord Lovel's a briar.
They grew till they reached the churchyard top;
There they could grow no higher.
They entwined there in a true lover's knot
That true lovers always admire, admire,
That true lovers always admire.