Lord Lovel- (PA) pre1919; Shoemaker
[From North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy: as sung in the Backwood settlements, Hunting cabins and Lumber Camps in Northern Pennsylvania by Shoemaker; 1919. John French's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
John C. French says: "The phrase, 'salt sea sand,' I believe, reverts to an ancient practice of covering the coffin with a few feet of clean, white sand, and in some English towns, filling the graves with it, rounding off the graves with the white sand in which vegetation did not grow for a few years, except in flower pots. The quire or quirer was the burial vault beneath the entrance steps or portal of the church or choirgallery."
72—LORD LOVEL- Taken from an aged Potter County woman's written copy.
Lord Lovel, he stood at his castle gate,
A-combing his milk-white steed,
When up stepped Lady Nancy Belle
To wish her lover God-speed.
"Oh! where are you going, Lord Lovel," she said,
"Oh! where are you going?" said she.
"I am going, my Lady Nancy Belle,
Strange countries for to see."
"When will you be back, Lord Lovel?" she said.
"When w'll you be back?" said she.
"In a year or two, or three at most,
I'll return to my Lady Nancy."
He had not been gone a year and a day,
Strange countries for to see,
When languishing thoughts came into his head;
Lady Nancy he would see.
He got on his steed and rode quite well
Till he came to London Town;
And there he heard St. Francis' bells,
And the people all mourning around.
"Oh! what is the matter?" Lord Lovel he said;
"Oh! what is the matter?" said he.
"The Lord's Lady's dead," a woman replied,
"And some call her Lady Nancy."
He ordered the grave to be opened wide,
The shroud to be turned down,
And there he kissed her clay-cold lips
Till the tears they came trickling down.
Lady Nancy she died as it might be today,
Lord Lovel, he died on the morrow;
Lady Nancy, she died out of pure, pure grief,
Lord Lovel, he died out of sorrow.
Lady Nancy was buried on the salt sea sand,
Lord Lovel on the quire,
And out of Lady Nancy's grave there sprang a red rose,
And out of Lord Lovel's a briar.
They grew so high, they grew so tall,
They reached the mountain top.
And there the red rose and the briar bush met,
And tied in a true lover's knot.