Lord Thomas- Parsons (TN) 1917 Sharp L
[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.
R. Matteson 2012, 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.
Similar opening stanzas are found in that region:
Folk-songs of the Kentucky mountains / Josephine McGill.
McGill, Josephine, 1877-1919.
New York ; Toronto: Boosey, c1917.
Lord Thomas
"O mother, O mother, come riddle my sport,
Come riddle it all as one;
Must I go marry Fair Ellender,
Or bring the brown girl home."
"The brown girl she has house ...
The Singing South: Folk-Song in Recent Fiction Describing Southern Life
by Arthur Palmer Hudson
The Sewanee Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1936), pp. 268-295
The Time of Man[1] is the story of a Kentucky tenant-farmer family living in the latter half of the nineteenth celntury. Ellen
Chesser, sitting on a stone in the middle of the creek bed, muses:
And a story about a horse could talk and one about Fair Ellender,
"O mother, O mother, come riddle my sport,
Come riddle it all as one.
Must I go marry fair Ellender?"
Ellender, that's me. And people a-dyin' for grief and people a dyin' for sorrow ... I know a right smart o' pieces. . .[2]
1. New York (The Viking Press), 1926.
2. P. 38.
L. Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender- Sung by Miss ALICE PARSONS at Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Claiborne Co., Tenn., April 27, 1917; Pentatonic. Mode 3.
1. Mother, O mother, come riddle my sport,
Come riddle us both in one.
Must I go marry fair Ellender,
Or bring the brown girl home?
2 The brown girl has both houses and lands,
Fair Ellender has none,
And my advice would be for you
To bring the brown girl home.
3 Mother, O mother, go saddle my steed,
Go catch him up for me,
For I must invite fair Ellender
Unto my wedding day.
4 He dressed himself in scarlet red,
And wore a robe of green,
And every town that he passed through
They took him to be some king.
5 He rode up to fair Ellender's gate,
He jingled, he jingled the ring,
And none were so ready as fair Ellender
To rise and let him in.
6 What news, what news, Lord Thomas? she cried,
What news you bring to me ?
O I have come to invite you
Unto my wedding day.
7 Mother, O mother, come riddle my sport,
Come riddle us both in one.
Must I go to Lord Thomas's wedding,
Or stay at home and mourn.
8 There may be many of your friends,
And many more of your foes,
But my advice would be for you
To tarry this day at home.
9 There may be many of foes,
And many more of my friends,
But I'll go to Lord Thomas's wedding,
If I never return again.
10 She dressed herself in scarlet so fine
And wore a belt of green,
And every town that she rode through
They took her to be some queen.
11 She rode up to Lord Thomas's gate,
She jingled, she jingled the ring;
None were so ready as Lord Thomas himself
To rise and let her in.
12 He took her by her lily-white hand
And led her across the hall,
And sat her down in a golden chair
Which leaned against the wall.
13 Is this your bride, Lord Thomas? she cried,
I see she is quite brown.
Once you could have married as fair a young lady
As ever the sun shone round.
14 The brown girl had a little penknife
Which was both keen and sharp;
She placed it on poor Ellender's fair body
And pierced it to the heart.
15 What's the matter, what's the matter ? Lord Thomas he cried.
What's the matter? again cried he.
O now you 9ee my own heart's blood
Come tinkling down so free.
16 He took the brown girl by the hand,
And led her across the hall,
And drew his sword and cut her head off
And threw it against the wall.
17 He placed the handle against the wall,
The point against his breast.
Here ends the life of three true lovers.
Lord, take them home to rest.
18 Mother, O mother, go dig my grave,
Go dig it both wide and deep,
And place fair Ellender in my arms
And the brown girl at my feet.