Lord Thomas- Snipes (NC) 1918 Sharp B b
[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.
Bb. Lord Thomas- Mrs. Emily Josephine Snipes (Marion, NC) Sept. 5, 1918; Sharp Bb
Heptatonic. Ionian.
1. Lord Thomas was a bold forester,
A hunter of the king's deer.
Fair Ellen was a fair lady,
Lord Thomas he loved her dear.
2 There's hundreds are my friends, mother,
And thousands are my foes;
Betide my life, betide my death,
To Lord Thomas's wedding I'll go.
3 Despise her not, Lord Thomas says,
Despise her not unto me,
For I like the tip of your little finger
More than her whole body.
4 Fair Ellinor, fair Ellinor, Lord Thomas said,
What makes you look so dun?[1]
You used to wear as good a colour
As ever the sun shone on.
5 Lord Thomas, Lord Thomas, fair Ellinor cries,
Can you not plainly see
My own heart's blood streaming from my side?
Look what she's done to me.
6 He had a sword by his side
As he walked through the hall,
And he cut off the brown girl's head
And kicked it against the wall.
7 He called for his grave to be dug,
Go dig it wide and deep,
And bury fair Ellinor in my arms
And the brown girl at my feet.
8 He put the butt against the floor,
The point against his heart.
There never was three lovers, sure,
So soon they did depart.
1. dun? rhymes with "on."