Lord Randal My Son by J. H. P. Pafford, 1952
Lord Randal My Son by J. H. P. Pafford
Folklore, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Mar., 1952), pp. 26-29
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd
LORD RANDAL MY SON
As a contribution to the record of ballad diffusion and particularly to that of the ballad theme usually entitled Lord Randal My Son the following version is printed. It was sung on the march by men of a battalion of the Wiltshire regiment stationed at and near Devizes in 1941. Enquiry revealed that the ballad had previously been known by only two men who had introduced it in their platoon where it became a popular marching song. One of these men, Pte. Sellars, lived near Bristol, and the other,
Pte. Beasant, near Wootton Bassett; both said that they had learnt it "from other men" in their home districts, which indicates that the song was current in their communities in the West Country. Sellars' version was taken in 1941, Beasant's in 1951. The version below is that given by Sellars, variations by Beasant being noted as B Variants, below. The tune is written in 1951 from memory of the singing ten years earlier.
[with music]
1. Where have you been all day Henry my son ?
Where have you been all day my be-lov-ed one ?
Fields dear moth-er Fields dear moth-er
O make my bed for I've pains in my head and I want to lie down.
2. Who took you to the fields Henry my son?
Who took you to the fields my beloved one?
Gypsies dear mother,
Gypsies dear mother,
Oh make my bed (etc.).
3. What did you have to eat Henry my son?
What did you have to eat my beloved one?
Snakes dear mother,
Snakes dear mother,
Oh make my bed (etc.).
4. What colour were the snakes Henry my one?
What colour were the snakes my beloved son?
Brown and yellow,
Brown and yellow,
Oh make my bed (etc.).
5. How shall I make your bed Henry my son?
How shall I make your bed my beloved one?
Long and narrow,
Long and narrow,
Oh make my bed (etc.).
6. Where shall I make your bed Henry my son?
Where shall I make your bed my beloved one?
In the Church-yard,
In the Church-yard,
Oh make my bed for I've pains in my head,
And I want to lie down.
B Variants
The only variants given by Beasant, writing independently ten years after the above version was recorded by Sellars, were that the second verse was omitted altogether and in verse 4 the colour of the snakes was given as " Green and yellow."
The ballad is, of course, a crude version of Child No. 12.[1] This is a well known and widely diffused ballad which can be traced in Italy at least to the early seventeenth century-Child (I. 152) records an Italian printed reference to it in 1629. Although Lord Randal has not apparently had such detailed treatment as Edward[2]-a ballad with which it has much in common-it has certainly not been neglected. After Child the main treatments seem to be those by Countess Evelyn Martinengo-
Cesaresco in Essays in the study of folksongs, 1886," Phillips Barry[4] and by Phillips Barry, F. H. Eckstrom and M. W. Smyth in British ballads from Maine, 1929.[5] It has been traced as common in Italy for over 300 years where, according to Child and to British Ballads from Maine (p. 65) it is still sung as L'Avvelenato, that is, "The poisoned man." It is known in Scotland, England (one record, from Suffolk, is in Child I, 152) and Ireland; in America, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary
and in the Wendish language (Child I, 152-54). The American versions
are dealt with fully in the works referred to in footnotes 4 and 5 of the
present article, but there is another American version, and a valuable
bibliography complementary to that in Child, on pp. 51-2 of Ballads and
songs of Indiana by P. G. Brewster [6] and further references will be found
in A bibliography of North American Folklore and Folksong by C. Hay-
wood, published in I951.
As is well known, the ballad exists in almost innumerable variants and, although the name Randal was chosen by Child, very many other names
are used in different versions, e.g. Ronald, Rowland, Tiranty. Henry,
although fairly frequent, is not among the most common. It is used in a
Scotch version given by Child (I, pp. 159-60) where the character is
King Henry, my son, as it also is in the English version in English Tradi-
tional Songs and Carols by L. E. Broadwood, 1908.[7] It is also used in at
least one American version, as sung by some " little Jewish girls " in
New York City.[8] Here Henry dies from poisoned butter, but a further
link with the Wiltshire version is that this is described as being " Green
and Yellow ". King Henry is also used in the two stanza fragment from
Lincolnshire in Notes and Queries 8, Vol. 6, p. 427.[9] The German version
" Schlangenkachin ", noted by Child (I. 187), has not only the name
Henry and the snakes but the burden entreaty to the Mother to " make
my bed " followed by the instruction that this is to be in the churchyard,
and these parallels make it perhaps closest to the present Wiltshire
version.
Outside Italy there is no record of the ballad earlier than the beginning
of the nineteenth century. Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco believed that
the ballad may have originated in Italy. The fact that it is recorded there
some 200 years before it is traced elsewhere is strong argument for this
theory although, if true, the apparent slowness of the ballad's diffusion
would appear to be interesting.
The Wiltshire version-which is apparently unrecorded by Alfred
Williams or by Sharp-is crude and lacks the final " bequest " clauses
which are so common:
" What d'ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal, my son?
What d'ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man? "
" I leave her hell and fire; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down."
[Child, I, 158].
But is not this very crudity and lack of literary polish or dramatic
intensity in itself significant when the use of the Wiltshire version is considered; and does not this perhaps throw some light on communal
usage and adaptation of the ballads? For to the men who sang it, the
version, with its simplicity and serio-comic flavour, was sufficient. It was
the sort of thing they wanted to sing. It had been picked up from other
men, one of whom may well have learnt a more literary and tragic version,
but it had been changed to a form acceptable to the community, changed,
perhaps, by them and certainly used and diffused by them.
The basic metre roughly conforms to the " 3 time, with the stress
usually on the second, fifth, seventh and tenth syllables " which is noted
by M. J. C. Hodgart; 10 the feet, however, are not dactyllic throughout
but chiefly in the penultimate line.
With regard to the tune, although this is recorded from memory after
a ten-year interval, it is believed to be a close approximation to the tune
actually sung. It could hardly have been much more than this if it had
been recorded at the time, for the singing was rough and ready and almost
certainly varied among the men. The tune shows little affinity to re-
corded versions which have been noted : the closest, perhaps, being
with that given by Sharp in English Folk Songs, Selected Edition. Vol. 2,
pp. 2-3, who also notes in this work (p. ix) that " This ballad is sung very
freely from one end of the island to the other." The fact that the tune
may have little beauty in itself would seem to put this specimen among
those ballads which Sharp describes as " the most perfect type ", i.e.
the ballad " in which the tune, whilst serving its purpose as an ideal
vehicle for the words, is of comparatively little value when divorced from
its text ".[12] Two airs are recorded by Child (Vol. 5, PP. 412-3) and these
two, with five others, are also printed by John Goss.[13] Another version
which has close parallels in tune and words with the Wiltshire version
is that recorded by Mr. F. C. Collinson.[14] This--which has only been
noticed as the present article was in the press-is another modern
version of the ballad taken in Coventry in 1946 and learned by the singer
in 1926 from a child who had probably come from " somewhere in the
Black Country ".
Finally it should be noted that-as with many ballads-this may also
be classed as a nursery rhyme, and that examples and a discussion of it
are given on pp. 75-8 of the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes edited
by I. and P. Opie, 1951.
J. H. P. PAFFORD
1 English and Scottish popular ballads. 5 vols. 1882-98 (Vol I, pp. I51-66).
[Edition in one vol. ed. by H. C. Sargent and G. L. Kittredge, 19o6, but references
in this article are to the 5 vol. ed.]
2 e.g. Taylor, Archer: " Edward " and " Sven i Rosengard ". 1931.
3 Pp. 214-27, " Lord Ronald in Italy ".
4 Jnl. of American Folk-lore, 16, 1903, 258-64 and 18, 1905, 195-207, 303-4
5 Lord Randal is extensively treated on pp. 46-72.
6 Indiana University Publications. Folklore Series I, I940o.
7 Cited with tune, in Goss J. : Ballads of Britain. 1937, p. Io.
8 " Lord Randal " in America by H. G. Shearin (Mod. Lang. Rev. I4, I919,
pp. 211-14, esp. p. 214).
9 Cited in Gutch, E. & Peacock, M. : County Folklore V. Lincolnshire. I9o8"
p. 372.
10 The Ballads, 1950, p. 62.
x As in references in footnotes 4, 5 and 7 and in Greig, G. and Keith, A.: Last
leaves of traditional ballads and ballad airs, 1925, pp. 14-15, and Sharp, C. J.;
English folk songs. Selected edition, Vol. 2, pp. ix-x, 2-3.
12 Sharp, C. J. : English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalacians. (Vol. I,
p. XXIX. 13 versions of Lord Randal are given in Vol. I on pp. 38-45).
13 Ballads of Britain, 1937, pp. 10-13.
14 Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Vol. V., No. I, Dec.
1946, pp.