Lord Thomas & Lady Helen- Dame(MA) 1914 Sharp K
[My title, single stanza with music. From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians collected by Cecil J. Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell- Volume I; 1917 edition and 1932 edition edited by Maud Karpeles. The 1932 edition notes follow.
This was not collected by Sharp- Olive Ashford Dame (Campbell) was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1882 and this Massachusetts ballad from Mrs. Isabel A. Dame in 1914 is likely from her mother.
R. Matteson 2014]
No. 19. Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor.
Texts without tunes:—Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 73. Broadside by Catnach. C. S. Burners Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 545. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 135. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 235; xx. 254; xxviii. 152; xxxix. 94. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 45 (see also further references).
Texts with tunes:—Kidson's Traditional Tunes, p. 40. English County Songs, p. 42. E. M. Leather's Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, p. 200. Sandys's Christmas Carols, tune 18. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii. 105; v. 130. Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques, p. 94. C. Sharp's English Folk Songs (Selected Edition), ii. 27 (also published in One Hundred English Folk Songs, No.28). Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, No. 28. Scots Musical Museum, vi, No. 535. Reed Smith's South Carolina Ballads, No. 6. Wyman and Brockway's Twenty Kentucky Songs, p. 14. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii. 128. British Ballads from Maine, p. 128, Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 191 and 568. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 28. Sandburg's American Songbag, p. 156.
K. [Lord Thomas and Lady Helen] Sung by Mrs. ISABEL A. DAME (Mass.), in 1914
Hexatonic. Mode 3, a.
1. Lord Thomas he was a bold forester,
A huntsman of the King's deer;
Lady Helen she was a fair lady,
Lord Thomas he loved her dear.