Morning Fair- Frank Proffitt (NC) 1962 REC
[From the recording Frank Proffitt of Reese, NC CD-1: American Folk Music on Folk-legacy, 1962. The liner notes follow. This is a rare version with the "pastoral" opening stanza. It's from his aunt Nancy Prater and is unique and quite different.
R. Matteson 2017]
Frank Proffitt, of Beach Mountain NC, sang this song as "Morning Fair" on his 1962 Folk-Legacy album Traditional Songs and Ballads of Appalachia. It was also released in 1966 as the Topic album North Carolina Songs and Ballads. The booklet commented:
Not often found in this form, this ballad is widely popular in America as The Butcher Boy, perhaps because it was widely printed in the early songsters. Brown points out that it appeared as a stall ballad in both Boston and New York. Frank learned his splendid variant from his aunt, Nancy Prather. The ballad is usually found with the following as the final couplet:
And on my breast place a turtle dove
To show the world that I died for love.
Morning Fair- sung by Frank Proffitt of Beach Mountain NC, in 1962, learned from his aunt Nancy Prather.
As I woke up one morning fair
To take a walk all in the air,
I thought I heard my true love say,
“Oh turn and come my way.
“You told me tales, you told me lies,
You courted a girl worth more than I.
But gold will fade and silver will fly,
My love for you will never die.
“Oh, tell me, Willie, oh tell me please,
Do you take her upon your knees
And hug and kiss her all so free
And tell her things you won't tell me?
“Is it because that I am poor
That you turn me far from your door
To wander out in a cruel dark world
Because you love a rich man's girl?”
“She gave me cake, she gave me wine,
I rode out in her carriage fine;
She set herself upon my knee
And begged and kissed me all so free.
“Her father gives to me his land
And also of his daughter's hand;
To give it up, a fool I'd be,
To trade it all for the love of thee.”
She went upstairs, up to her bed;
A aching was all in her head;
A rope she tied around the sill;
They found her hanging, cold and still.
There in her bosom was this note,
All with her pen these words she wrote:
“Heap up my grave so very high
So Willie can see as he rides by.”