Lord Randall- Smiths (VA-NC) c1855 Davis AA
[From Kyle Davis Jr., More Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1960, six versions AA-FF. Davis's notes follow. Cf. Smith's version of Child 12 (US versions) titled The Fair Sisters.
Thomas P. Smith, the co-informant, collected songs and ballads for the Brown Collection when he lived in Zionville, NC from about 1914 onward. Some 20 years later he "contributed" this version to Kyle Davis Jr. By then Smith had moved to Palmyra, Virginia within Davis' collecting region. Smith is well aware of the Child ballads and I'm sure had access to or had a copy of Child's ESPB. Several of the Smith's contributions are of questionable authenticity and in my opinion this version is a recreation. Davis, I'm sure was aware of the Smith's questionable contributions (especially after the King Orpheo version!) and excluded at least one and noted others. It seems also that R.E. Lee Smith is responsible for sending in this re-creation but it was supported by his brother, Thomas.
For their version of Child 10, the Smith's clearly took a copy of Child B, The Twa Sisters and reworked it first sending it to Abrams (variant 5), then changed it again, so it wasn't directly copied, and sent it to Davis who published it as his AA version.
Here's the Smith's took Child A, changed "greenwood to" "silverwood," and tacked on the ending stanzas where Lord Randal verbally gives his last will and testament to his mother. The end has two bizarre lines, probably made up from Child 10- but not even formed into a conventional stanza!
Why Davis continued to sponsor the Smith's versions is unclear, but he had no version with the "hawks and hounds" stanza found in Child A. If fact, there is but one "hounds and hawks" stanza found in the US-- and the Smiths, of course, have this text.
This again, in my opinion, is a re-creation of Child A and not traditional.
R. Matteson 2014]
LORD RANDAL
(Child No. 12)
Despite the great popularity of this ballad in America, the basic story of the sweetheart's murderous treachery, revealed through a question-and-answer sequence between a mother and her dying son, has remained surprisingly uncorrupted. Except for AA, the newly collected Virginia texts follow Child B in omitting information about the death of Randal's dogs, and all follow either Child A or B in the use of the gallows or hell-fire motif.
The concluding stanza of AA giving the detail of the punishment of the faithless sweetheart represents a story variant different from any classified by Coffin. Although of interest to the collector, this information Seems rather superfluous, since "Lord Randal" ends far more dramatically on the bleak note of the betrayed lover's curse. Other texts given here follow Coffin's Story Typ. A, with many verbal variants.
Child prints twenty-five versions of the ballad, and points out its Continental relations. Gerould (pp. 17-20) remarks that the ballad has been found "as far east as Czecho-Slovakia and Hungary, as far north as Scotland and Sweden, and as fat south as Calabria." He shows the close parallel between an Italian version recently collected near Pisa and traced back to a broadside printed in Verona in 1629, and an eighteenth-century Scottish version.
TBVa prints fourteen texts out of sixteen available, with four tunes. More recent collecting in Virginia has produced six additional items, including four tunes (one lost). All six versions, with three tunes, are presented here. Bronson (I, 191-225) has found and prints 103 tunes (with texts), and divides them into three major groups, commenting that "most of the divisions suggesting themselves within the larger body of tunes are subdivisions rather than actual cleavages." Group A with 81 variants, represents the main melodic tradition of the ballad, which Bronson subdivides into four varieties, plus an appendix of anomalies, the oldest copy coming from Robert Burns in Ayrshire before 1792. Group B, with 16 variants divided into two almost equal parts, is the "Henry" group, mainly English, but with representatives from the west of Scotland and America. Group C, the "Croodin' Doo" version, with six variants, has two varieties, one Scottish and Aeolian, the other English. All four Virginia tunes from TBVa are classified under one or another subdivision of Bronson's major Group A. Of the tunes below, FF belongs to Bronson's Group Ac.
AA. "Lord Randall." Contributed by R. E. Lee Smith, of Palmyra, Va. Sung by his brother, Thomas P. Smith, of Palmyra, and himself. They learned it from the recitation of Mrs. Polly J. Rayfield, of Zionville, N. C. "She heard it sung now over sixty years by her mother, Mrs. Chaney Smith." Fluvanna County. January 11, 1915.
1 "Oh, where have you been, Lord Randall, my son,
And where have you been, my handsome young man ?"
"I have been in Silverwood;
Mother, make my bed soon,
For I am tired with hunting
And want to lay down."
2 "And who did you meet there, Lord Randall, my son,
And who met you there, my handsome young man?"
"I met my true love, Mother;
Make my bed soon,
For I am tired of hunting
And want to lay down."
3 "And what did she give you, Lord Randall, my son,
And what did she give you, my handsome young man ?"
"Fried fish, Mother;
Make my bed soon,
For I am tired of hunting
And want to lay down."
4 "And what did you do with your game, Lord Randall,
And what got your game, my handsome young man ?"
"My hounds and hawks, Mother;
Make my bed soon,
For I am tired of hunting
And want to lay down."
5 "And what became of them, Lord Randall, my son,
And what became of them, my handsome young man?"
"They died, Mother;
Make my bed soon,
For I am tired of hunting
And want to lay down."
6 "Oh, I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randall, my son,
I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man."
"O yes, I am poisoned, Mother dear,
Make my bed soon,
For I am sick in the heart
And want to lay down."
7 "What are ye going to leave to your mother, Lord Randall, my son,
What are you going to leave to your mother, my handsome young man?"
"Four and twenty milk cows;
Please make my bed soon,
For I am sick at heart
And want to lay down."
8 "What will you leave to your sister, Lord Randall, my son,
What will you leave to your sister, my handsome young man ?"
"My silver and gold, O Mother;
Make my bed soon,
For I am sick at heart
And about to fall down."
9 "What will you leave to your brother, Lord son,
What will leave to your brother, my handsome young
My houses and my lands, O Mother;
Please make my bed soon,
For I am sick at the heart
And want to lay down."
10 "What do you leave to your true love, Lord Randall, my son,
"What do you leave to your true love, my handsome young man ?"
"I leave her hell and fire;
O Mother, make my bed soon,
For I am sick at the heart
And want to lay down."
11 Lord Randall was buried in a church yard,
His wicked love was hanged to a gallows