Molly Bonder- (OH) pre1955 Bruce Buckley REC
[No informant named, from a "singing Irish family" in Adams County, Ohio. From: FOLKWAYS RECORDS Album' No. FA 2025; © 1955 "OHIO VALLEY BALLADS" SUNG BY BRUCE BUCKLEY, WITH GUITAR. Collected in the Ohio Valley. Liner notes follow.
This version is similar to Sara Cleveland's New York version.
R. Matteson 2016]
MOLLY BONDER
Song sheets, usually of words without music, were commonly known as broadsides in Colonial America and throughout the 19th century. They were also available as slip-sheets and even today song sheets are called "ballits" in parts of the South. This old broadside, still sung in the Ohio Valley, typifies songs used as models by American ballad singers, though in some respects this lovely old ballad is unusual rather than typical. The haunting, exquisite eeriness of its supernatural element is better than the loudest boast of its Irish ancestry and the liquid melody, though the wine has lens since pissed from old bottles, has the body and bouquet of a vintage year.
In this country it has been found under many names: Peggy Baun, Molly Bawn, Molly Bond, Polly Vann, Mollie Vaughn, etc. The supernatural element was sometimes omitted by American ballad makers. It has been assumed from this that the latter were more factual, a conclusion the Irish might well dispute.[1]
This particular variant -- a very fine example of its kind -- was collected from a "singing Irish family" in Adams County, Ohio.
Among the facts known about Molly Bonder in its various guises we have culled the following from John Harrington Cox's "Folk Songs of the South": Mollie Bawn (Our Ohio Molly Bonder) arrived in this country with the early settlers. The first printing still
extant, though rarer than Button Gwinnet's signature in all likelihood, is in Jamieson's printed circular letter of 1799. He also published the ballad as "Polly Bann" in his "Popular Ballads" (1806). Another early printing was marked, "from a Ballad Printer and seller in Boston. Isaiah Thomas, 1813."
Additional references: Eddy's "Ballads & Songs of Ohio"; Journal of the Folksong Society, London vii, 17 (The Shooting of His Dear); Joyce's "Irish Music & Song" (Molly Bawn).
(quoted in tbe Journal of American Folklore, July-September, 1917, volume 30.) Mollie's ghost was also seen in Kentucky and no doubt in many other places. Note how close our Ohio version is to the Irish one.
Molly Bonder- from a "singing Irish family" in Adams County, Ohio; sung by Bruce Buckley 1955.
Come all you young huntsmen that handles the gun
And ever go a hunting at the down setting sun
I will tell to you a story that happened of late
Concerning pretty Molly whose beauty was great.
Molly Bonder was a-walking when a shower came on
She went under a beech tree the shower to shun
Jimmy Ramsel was a-hunting all fowling in the dark
When he shot his own true love and he missed not the mark.
He ran along to her and threw his gun down
Saying "Molly, truest Molly, I shot Molly Bond
She was the fairest jewel, the joy of my life
I always intended to make her my wife."
He ran home to his uncle and threw his gun down
Cryin' "Uncle, dearest Uncle I've shot Molly Bond
Come and go along with me and for yourself see
Yonder lies her body under a green growing tree."
Out spoke his old uncle with locks all so gray
Saying, "Stay at home Jimmy and don't run away"
Saying, "Stay at home Jimmy your trial to stand
Perhaps you'll come clear by the laws of this land."
The day of Jimmy's trial Molly' s ghost did appear
Saying, "Squire, dearest Squire, Jimmy Ramsel come clear
He shot me and he killed me the fault was my own,
With my apron tucked around me he took me for a swan. "
All the girls in this country they made themselves glad
When they heard of Molly Bonder her beauty being dead
He said, "Take all from around me and place them in a row
Molly shown through them like a mountain of snow."
"Take them all in their hundreds, set them all in a row,
Molly Ban she shone among them like a mountain of snow."
1. In a version in "Irish Street Ballads," by Colm O Lochlainn (Sign of The Three Candles, Dublin) this song is Young Molly Ban:
"Come all you young fellows that follow the gun" and the ghost of Molly is nowhere to be seen. In the last stanza, the singer suggests you take the maids of the country ...and the word mountain makes an interior rhyme with "fountain" in the preceding stanza. But Mollie's ghost surely came from somewhere and what is more natural than that she came from Ireland? At any rate, this seems to have been the situation in Massachusetts, where Polly Vann (our Molly still) was the heritage of many generations:
"The judges and lawyers stood round in a row,
Polly Vann in the middle, like a fountain of snow."