Milk White Nag- Keener (WV) 1946 Musick
[From Folklore from West Virginia by Ruth Ann Musick (1946); Hoosier Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Jun., 1947), pp. 41-49
R. Matteson 2014]
I. BALLADS NOTE ON BALLADS CONTRIBUTED BY WALTER H. KEENER, FAIRMONT STATE COLLEGE
All of the following ballads were given me by Walter H. Keener, a student at Fairmont State College, Fairmont, West Virginia. He got all of them from his father. Mr. Keener's father used to sing ballads between the acts of an original minstrel show, which he took from town to town and performed whenever and wherever he could do so before a reasonable-sized audience. The group of young men who took part in these original minstrel shows, written by Mr. Thomas T. Keener, were made up of members of a baseball team, who, at the end of the baseball season, decided to travel around and make an easy living. Mr. T. Keener, it seems, wrote the original scripts, took part in the show, sang ballads between acts, and sold popcorn. I believe Mr. Walter Keener said his father was a mixture of English and Irish? that some English ancestor had gone to Ireland and married there, but I don't believe he knew exactly when. It seems that his father's repertoire at one time included a fairly large number of Child's English and Scottish Ballads in one form or another. Mr. Walter Keener says:
My father in his younger days, rather than earn an honest living, produced plays and toured the country, showing wherever and whenever an audience would appear who looked the price of admission and a bag of popcorn, he had that concession also. During these plays, and between acts, my father sang songs, including a number of old ballads. Because my father produced the plays, all this added to his reasons for claiming a larger part of the "take" as he called it. These songs were imposed upon
me while I sat in his lap, as a young lad, on quiet summer evenings on our farm, when nothing interfered with his singing but the buzzing of the locusts, the harmonious cracking of the rocking chair and the croaking of the frogs. At such times, I listened to "Oh, Hangsman, Hangsman, Spare That Rope" or "Father, Dear Father, Come Home With Me Now, The Clock In The Steeple Strikes Two." At other times I sat transfixed while he sang "not as well as I used to," to quote him, "He Cut His Wife's Head Off
And Kicked It Up Against The Wall." My first picture of the sea was a song that he sang between brief imitations of those frogs and the "cracking" of the rocker:
"Oh, Captain, Captain, tell me true
Does my sweet Willie sail with you?
"Oh, no, kind sir, he is not here,
For he lies in yonder sea, I fear."[1]
It seems Mr. Keener came by his knowledge of ballads from both sides of the family. He says further:
My old grandfather on my mother's side sang a dozen or more of these old ballads by popular request on his ninety-third birthday. Somehow, the beauty of his well seasoned and rich baritone voice imparted a picture that linked me with those ballads these past sixteen years since his death.
Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight
Child Ballad No. 4, H
He mounted on his milk white nag
He leadeth the dappled gray
Until he arrived at his true love's door,
Six hours before it was day.
He rode upon his milk white nag,
She rode the dappled gray
Until they arrived at the dark seaside,
Six hours before it was day.
Then he mounted off the milk white nag.
"Dismount, I pray," said he,
"For six pretty maids have I drowned here
And the seventh one you shall be."
She mounted off the dappled gray.
"Your rings and robe," said he.
"Please take them off, my pretty maid,
And deliver them unto me."
"Oh, Lover, Lover, this I pray,
Please turn your back on me."
She grabbed him 'round the slender waist
And dashed him right into the sea.
"True love, true love, I cannot swim;
Your hand please give to me!"
"Six fair ones you have drowned here,
But the seventh one you shall be!"
She mounted on his milk white nag.
She leadeth the dappled gray,
Until she arrived at her father's door,
Six hours before it was day.