Maria Martini (Waxen Girl)- Lily Green (TC) 1938 Munch B
[From: The Song Tradition of Tristan da Cunha; 1970. Munch's notes from JAF 1961 follow. There is no music provided for this version.
Two versions of the ballad have been found in a remote island in the south Atlantic Ocean named Tristan da Cunha. They were written down during the Norwegian scientific expedition to the island in 1938-9, by Peter Munch, who was the sociologist. On the Island they are named Maria Martini but are versions of our Berkshire ballad. The island became a British colony in 1816 and the ballad was brought to the Island after this. The variants are of the early English tradition and have some text similar to, or based on, The Cruel Miller.
R. Matteson 2016]
This, of course, may ensure the preservation of a song even though a line or two (or perhaps a whole stanza) may be distorted beyond recognition-- until a creative soul comes into the line of transmission and restores a cognitive meaning, although probably not the original one. Thus, in British and American versions of The Lexington Murder, the murdered girl is variously from Wexford, Woxford, Oxford, or Lexington. In Tristan da Cunha, where the song is known under the title of Maria Martini, the girl has become a "waxford" girl in one version, and in another is described more meaningfully as a "waxen" girl. This song is well known in America and has been recorded in various versions from Newfoundland to North Carolina. All stem, according to Leach, "ultimately from British broadsides of the 18th century by way of American printed broadsides." Again it is characteristic that the two versions found in Tristan are closely parallel to some of the American versions. And, of course, the murder takes place at eight o'clock. Interesting is the fact that the Tristan islanders have preserved the song in a pentatonic Dorian mode.
B. Maria Martini (Waxen Girl) as sung by Lily Green of Tristan da Cunha; c. 1938, collected by Peter Munch, version B
1. I have courted a waxen girl
with the dark and roving eye,
The girl that I have courted
with the dark and roving eye.
2. He came to my master's house
at eight o'clock one night,
And asked me to take a walk
through green and mellow fields.
3. And as we were a-walking,
he stopped to talk a while.
And he pulled a stick out of the hedge
and tapped her on the side.
4. Then on her bendening knees she fell.
crying, "Mercy, Lord, on me!"
Saying, "John, my dear, don't murder me,
for I'm not fit to die."
5. The blood from this young damsel's side
come streaming on the ground,
Oh, the blood from this young damsel's side
come a-streaming on the ground.
6. He took her by the curly head
and drew her over the field
Till he came by the riverside,
and there he threw her in.
7. My master being out of bed
and striking of a light,
My master being out of bed
at ten o'clock at night.
8. He asked me and questioned me,
what soiled my hand and clothes,
I gave him an answer I thought fit:
"I am bleeding from the nose."
9. And all the blessed long night through
the flames round my head,
And all the blessed long night through
the burning flames round my head.
10. Nine days after, this young damsel's body
came a-floating down,
Came a-floating pass her sister's house,
and that is the way she was found.
11. They took me up on [suspicion]
and into prison I was cast,
And there I stayed till I was tried
and now to be hung at last.
12. Come all you faithful sailor boys,
come take a warning from me,
And don't you do no murder
and now to be hung at last.