Molly Bawn- Seamus Ennis (Dublin) 1951 Lomax REC
[From "Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music: Ireland" Columbia AKL 4941 (1955)
These Irish songs were recorded in 1951 in the western counties of Eire by Seamus Ennis, Alan Lomax, Robin Roberts, and by Brian George and Maurice Brown for the BBC, with the cooperation of the Irish Folklore Commission, the British Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Éireann. Seamus was a performer and collector, the source of this version is unknown.
In the song notes below refer to a Hebridean version, which in this case would be an analogue: Hebridean --The Hebrides is an archipelago comprising hundreds of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland. Divided into the Inner and Outer Hebrides groups, they are home to rugged landscapes, fishing villages and remote Gaelic-speaking communities.
R. Matteson 2016]
26. Molly Bawn
Sung by Seamus Ennis.
Known in England as "Polly Vaughn" and in the United States as "The Shooting of his Dear," this come-all-ye reworks an ancient folk theme. In the Hebridean version, it is the cruel mother who advises her son to shoot a swan, even though she knows that the swan is his true love.
Jimmy went fowling with his dog and his gun,
Fowling all day until the night it came on,
He met with his true love and took her for a swan,
And he shot his Molly Bawn by the setting of the sun.
Jimmy went home with his gun in his hand,
Sad and brokenhearted as you may understand,
He said to his father "I took her for a swan,
But O and alas it was my own Molly Bawn."
Then up spoke his father whose locks they were grey
Stay in this country and do not run away,
Stay in this country till your trial has come on
And you never shall die for the loss of a swan.
It wasn't six months after to her uncle she appeared,
Crying "Uncle, dear uncle, don't think to shoot my dear,
With my apron all around me he took me for a swan.
And he never would have murdered his Molly Bawn"