Lydia Margaret- Neff (Mo.) 1914 Kittredge JOAFL
[From: Ballads and Songs by G. L. Kittredge; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 30, No. 117 (Jul. - Sep., 1917), pp. 283-369. His noted follow.
Lydia is a variant of the word, lady as many versions are Lady Margaret and pronounced "Liddy" (Dew Hanson) or Lydia."
2012, 2014]
FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM (Child, No. 74).
To the references given by Tolman in this Journal, 29: 160, add: 27 : 58-62; 28 : 200-203; "Focus," 4: 426-427; Cox, 45: 159, 378, 388 (JAFL 29: 400); Virginia Folk-Lore Society, Bulletin, No. 2, P. 4; No. 3, P. 3; No. 4, p. 6; No. 5, P. 7; F. C. Brown, p. 9. A text from Harlan County, Kentucky ("Sweet William and Lady Margery," fourteen stanzas), with the music, is in Wyman and Brockway, "Lonesome Tunes," I: 94-99. It resembles Child's B and the Massachusetts variant printed by Child, 5: 293-294. Miss McGill's "Sweet William" (twenty stanzas, and tune) is also to be classed with Child's B ("Folk-Songs of the Kentucky Mountains," 1917, pp. 69-77). Professor Belden has four variants.
[Lydia Margaret.] Communicated, 1914, by Mr. S. B. Neff, as written down in that year from memory by his father, Mr. Francis Marion Neff of Ridgeway, Mo., aged about seventy-six, who was born in Indiana, and removed to Missouri at about the age of twenty. Mr. F. M. Neff had never seen the ballad in print.
1. Sweet William arose on Monday morning,
And he dressed himself in blue:
"Come and tell unto me that long, long love
That's between Lydia Margaret[1] and you." [2]
2. "I know no harm of Lydia Margaret,
And she knows no harm of me;
But to-morrow morning at the eight o'clock hour
Lydia Margaret my bride shall see."
3. Lydia Margaret was sitting in her upper bar door,
A-combing her long yellow hair,
As she spied Sweet William and his own dear bride,
As they to the church drew near.
4. She threw down her fine ivory combs,
Her long yellow hair also;
And she threw herself from the upper bar door,
And the blood it began to flow.
5. " I had a dream the other night -
I feared there was no good -
I dreamed that my hall was full of wild swine
And my true love was floating in blood."
6. He called down his merry maids all,
He called them by one, two, and three,
And he asked the leave of his own dear bride:
"Sweet one, may I go and see?"
7. He rode and he rode till he came to Lydia Margaret's door,
And he tingled on the ring;
And there was none so ready as her own dear brother
To rise and let him in.
8. "Oh where is Lydia Margaret to-day?
Oh where is she, I say?
For once I courted her for love,
And she stole my heart away.
9. "Is she in her bedchamber,
Or is she in her hall,
Or is she in her own kitchen
Among her merry maids all?"
10o. "She is neither in her bedchamber,
She is neither in her hall,
But yonder she lies in her own coffin,
As it sits against the wall."
11. "Fold down those lily-white sheets;
Oh fold them down!" he said,
And as he kissed her clay-cold lips,
His heart was made to grieve.
12. Lydia Margaret [died] as if it was to-day,
Sweet William he died on the morrow;
Lydia Margaret she died for pure, pure love,
And Sweet William he died for sorrow.
13. Lydia Margaret was laid in the high churchyard,
Sweet William was laid in the mire;
And out of Lydia Margaret's bosom sprang a rose,
And out of Sweet William's was a brier.
14. They grew and they grew to the church steeple top,
They grew till they couldn't grow any higher;
And there they tied in a true lover's knot,
The red rose and the brier.
1. [My footnote] Lydia is a variant of the word, lady, as many versions are Lady Margaret and pronounced "Liddy" (Dew Hanson) or Lydia."
2. The last two lines are to be repeated.