Lord Thomas- Cruickshank (MO) 1920 Belden L
[My abbreviated title. From Belden; Ballads and Songs--Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society; 1940. His notes follow (barely edited).
R. Matteson 2014]
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet
(Child 73)
Child has nine versions of this ballad (which has parallels in Scandinavian and Romance balladry), all but one of which are Scotch. This one, D, is an English broadside of the seventeenth century, frequently printed since and current also in oral tradition. And from it have come all the American versions as well as most of those gathered from oral tradition in Great Britain since Child's time. Two features that mark most of the Scotch texts: the contamination with Lady Margaret and Sweet William, at the opening and the close, and Annie's answer to the brown girl's question about her complexion that she got it where the brown girl will never get the like, viz. in her mother's womb- these have disappeared in the modern versions.* The rose and briar ending, too, which marks several of the Scotch versions and some of the later British texts (Aberdeenshire, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Devonshire) and is inconsistent with the triple burial (with which it is none the less combined in Gloucestershire and Devonshire and in Child's Dh, an Irish-American version), is infrequent in American texts, appearing only in NPM, TBV B, SCBB, SSSA, and Missouri J. In the broadside Lord Thomas is a bold forester, and he is so called in the Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Devonshire versions recently recorded. When this characterization appears in Ameriean texts (as it does in BBM A B C, NPM, TBV A B C, SharpK K, SCB B, and the Vermont, Indiana, and Nebraska texts) we may infer a rather close relation to print. Thomas is so described in The Forget-Me-Not Songster, which had wide circulation in America in the middle of the last century. Thomas never sends a messenger to Eleanor, as in Child C E F H I, but goes himself. In the great majority of the modem texts the lovers consult their respective mothers only, occasionally father and mother together; never does a sister (as in Child A B F G H) advise him to prefer the fair girl to the brown. Two elements of realism-or perhaps we should say brutality-are evidently valued, for they persist in almost all the American versions: after Thomas has cut off the brown girl's head he kicks it (or some equivalent phraseology) against the wall; and when he remarks Eleanor's pallor she asks him if he cannot see her own heart's blood come trickling down her knee. There is considerable variety in the way the mother's counsel is asked. Most often the language is 'come riddle my riddle, come riddle it all in (as) one.' In Missouri A it is, come riddle your sword,' and in Missouri D J, TBv I(1), SharpK L N it is 'riddle my (the, these) sport(s).' Many years ago (modern Language Notes XXII 263-4) I ventured the suggestion that sport here is a mishearing of sword and that the latter word points to an earlier belief in the potency of weapons in soothsaying. This peculiar wording appears only in the American versions.
The ballad has been found in oral tradition since Child's time in Aberdeenshire (LL, 54-7, 256), Hertfordshire (JFSS v 180-1), Staffordshire (Burne, Shropshire Folk Lore 651), Herefordshire (JFSS II 107), Gloucestershire (FSUT 135-7), Hampshire (JFSS II 106, tune only), Somerset (JFSS II 105-6, 109), and Devonshire (JFSS II 102-8); in Nova scotia (BSSNS 21-4, SBNS 8-10) and Newfoundland (BSSN 18-20); in Maine (BBM 126-84), Vermont (JAFL XVIII 128-30, VFSB 209-13), Massachusetts (JAFL XYIII 180, by way of New Jersey), Pennsylvania (JAFL XXIX 159, by way of Kansas; NPM 755-7), Maryland (ABS 27-31, by way of Nebraska), Virginia (TBVa- 797-220, SharpK I 120, 721, 127-9, FSSH 68-9, SCSM 106-18), West Virginia (FSS 45-64), Kentucky (JAFL XX 264-6, BKH 49-bt, FSI(M 26-88, TKMS 11-27, DD 88-90, SharpK I 124-G), Tennessee (JAFL XLII 262-5, sharpK, 119-20,722-3, FSSH 60-3, SFL,Q II G9), North Carolina (JAFL XXVIII 152, SSSA 41, SharpK I 115-6, 118-21, 129-81, BMFSB 16-T), South Carolina (SCB 109-20), Georgia (SharpK I 116-8, 121), Mississippi (FSM 78-87), Texas (PFLST X 144-6),Indiana (JAFL XITVIII 314-6), Illinois (TSSI IBG-T), and Iowa (MAFITS XXIX 5-7). Three of Child's D texts, g h i, are from Irish in America, showing the ballad known in Ireland, and one, f, is from New Brunswick. Cambiaire does not exactly locate his texts, so that ETWVIIB 84-6, 11b-6 may represent either Tennessee or Virginia.
Since American texts are so much alike and so numerous (TBV prints eighteen, SharpK thirty-one (several of them however only fragments with tunes), FSS nine). I shall not print here all the twelve in the Missouri collection. Four of them have already been printed in JAFL XIX.
*The first of these features is retained in the Aberdeenshire version, and what is perhaps a vestige of the second; and a little vestige is perhaps to be seen in TBV H and FSS E.
L. 'Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor.' Written down for Miss Lowry by Earl Cruickshank, one of her pupils in the Columbus (Kansas) High School in 1920. An exceptionally full text. Note the ballad repetition by which the description of Eleanor's dress and its effect in the ninth stanza is anticipated in the description of Thomas in the fourth.
Lord Thomas was as fair a young man as ever
Kissed king's daughter fair;
Fair Eleanor was a handsome lady,
Lord Thomas loved her dear.
'Come riddle me, mother, come riddle,' he cried,
Come riddle us both in one:
Shall I marry Fair Eleanor
Or bring the Brown girl home?'
'The Brown girl, she has houses and land,
Fair Eleanor she has none;
So, if you take your mother's advice,
Go bring the Brown girl home.'
He dressed himself in rich apparel,
His servants all in green,
And every village that he passed through
They took him to be some king.
Lord Thomas rode to fair Eleanor's hall
And tingled all 'round the ring;
And none was so ready as fair Eleanor
To let Lord Thomas in.
'What news have you, Lord Thomas?' she cried,
'What news have you today?'
'I've come to ask you to my wedding.'
'Oh, sorrowful news!' cried she.
'Come riddle me, mother, come riddle,' she cried,
'Come riddle us both in one;
Shall I to Lord Thomas' wedding go,
Or stay with you at home?'
'There's many there may be your friend
And many may be your foe;
But if you take your mother's advice
To Lord Thomas' wedding don't go.'
She dressed herself in rich apparel,
Her servants all in green,
And every village that she passed through
They took her to be some queen.
She rode and she rode to Lord Thomas' hall
And tingled. all 'round the ring;
And none was so ready as Lord. Thomas
To let fair Eleanor in.
He took her by her lily-white hand
And capered all 'round the hall;
He took off his hat to every one,
And kissed her before them all.
'Is this your bride, Lord Thomas ?' she cried;
'I think she looks wonderfully brown.
You might have had as fair a bride
As ever the sun shone on.'
'No sport of me,' Lord Thomas then cried,
'No sport of me today.
'Twere better I love your little finger
Than the Brown girl's whole body.'
The Brown girl had a little pen-knife
Which was both keen and sharp;
And sorrowful news I tell unto thee,
She pierced fair Eleanor's heart.
'O what's the matter?' Lord Thomas then cried,
'I think you look dreadfully pale.
You used. to wear as fresh a color
As ever the rose did enhale.'
'Oh, are you blind, Lord Thomas,' she cried,
'Or can you not very well see
The very last drop of my dearest heart's blood
A-trinkling o'er your knee ?'
Lord Thomas had a two-edged sword
Which was both keen and small;
He cut the Brown girl's head from her body
And kicked it against the wall.
'Go dig my grave,' Lord Thomas then cried,
'Dig it both wide and deep,
And bury fair Eleanor in my arms,
The Brown girl at my feet.'
He put the handle to the wall,
The point toward his heart,
Saying, 'Here are three lovers very well met,
But sorrowfully they do part.'