Mother, Make My Bed Soon- Tatro (VT-QC) 1865 Flanders B
[From Ancient Ballads 1966, Flanders, version B with music. The intro notes are by Coffin- which follow. I've guestimated a date of 1865 when the informant was 12 years old. Surely her mother learned it before that. "Fair Nelson and "Fair Elson" have been collected by Barry in New England.
R. Matteson 2014]
Lord Randal
(Child 12)
"Lord Randal" has a vigorous oral tradition. Known from Italy to Iceland and to the Slavic countries, it has managed to spread across America with almost no aid from broad sheets and songsters. With its incremental repetition, its dialogue and testament, and its popularity, it makes the model folk song. Even the anthologists and critics are willing to accept the better variants as great poetry.
The details of the story of Randal's fate differ widely. The murderess may vary, as she does in the Flanders texts, from the sweetheart (A-E), to the wife (F, G), to the mother in league with the girl (H, I), to the grandmother O, K); the poison may be the usual snakes, or eels, or cakes, or what have you; and the possessions willed at the end may be almost anything at all. But the cole of the tragic event, the fatal disillusionment of a young man, remains firm. Perhaps the universal retention of this core can be laid to the fact that the song has already been reduced to its climax scene everywhere it is found. Unless the testament ending is dropped (see L f.), there is not much a singer can leave out if he recalls the story at all.
In truth, we know little about "Lord Randal"--why his sweetheart killed him, why he meets the girl in the woods, why his mother might be in league with the girl. The song can be traced back only as far as the late 1700's (except in Italy where a text "L'Avvelenato" was printed about 1600).
Archer Taylor attempts to explain the greenwood meeting by relating the song to "The King's Dochter Lady Jean" (Child 52), and Coffin has associated the testament ending with incest motives in "The Murder Motive in 'Edward' " (WF, VIII, No. 4, 314-19). However, Child's descriptions of British and European texts (I, 151 f.) and Barry's remarks in conjunction with the texts he prints in British Ballads from Maine, 64 f., are the best summaries of the history of the song. To start a bibliography, see Coffin, 42-45 (American); Dean-Smith, 85 (English); Ord, 458, and Greig and Keith, 13-15 (Scottish); and Paul Brewster, Ballads and Songs of Indiana (Indiana University Publications, Folklore Series, No. I [Bloomington, 1940], 51 [European]). Reed Smith has written a chapter on the degeneration of the song ("The Road Downhill") in his South Carolina Ballads (Cambridge, Mass., 1928). [Actually, this is incorrect; Smith has only a brief paragraph listing the various titles.]
The Flanders texts are pretty typical of New England. J and Q-R retain the characteristic northeastern "Tyranti" as the hero's name; D has both "Randal" and "Tyranti" and J-K, with the grandmother as the villain, are, as Barry says, probably descended from the Scottish "Croodlin' Doo." L & M seem to be mixed in the singer's mind with "Billy Boy"; A, with its refrain, is unusual.
The twelve tunes given here show a remarkable degree of diversity within basically two tune families. 1) The Shepard, Tatro, and Degreenia tunes correspond to group Ab in BC1; a comparison of the Degreenia and Sullivan tunes reveals that this group is also close to the next, 2) Sullivan, Bourne, Wheeler, Lewis, and Hills, which correspond to BC1 tune group Ac. The Dennison tune belongs with BC1 group Aa, the Cobleigh tune with BC1 group Ba; The Bracey tune seems independent of the others, and the Lorette tune, which may be a fragmented version of the Wheeler and Hills tunes, seems to fit into BC1 group Bc.
B. "Mother Make My Bed Soon." Recorded in Springfield, Vermont, from the singing of Mrs. George Tatro. Mrs. Tatro learned it from the singing of her mother, Mrs. Jane (Smith) Wilson, born in Abercorn, P.Q., Canada, in 1853. Mrs. Tatro's father was William Wilson, born in Potton, P.Q., Canada, in 1844. He still, at eighty-six years of age, plays the violin. His father, James Wilson, came from Killarney, she thinks, and, lived in Philadelphia where he was brought up by a lawyer. When he became of age, he went up into Canada, married there Susan Chappell. H. H. F., Collector November 12, 1930. Structure: A1 A2 A1 Ba (4,4,4,4); Rhythm divergent; Contour: undulating; Scale: hexatonic. t.c. E-flat. For mel. rel. see Rol, 64(8) (beginning)
Mother, Make My Bed, Soon
"Oh, where have you been, Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, where have you been, my fair pretty one?"
"I've been to see Polly; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm poisoned to my heart, and I fain would lie down."
"Oh, what did you eat, Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, what did you eat, my fair pretty one?"
"An eel; mother, make my bed soon
For I'm poisoned to my heart; and I fain would lie down."
"Oh, how did she catch it, Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, how did she catch it, my fair pretty one?"
"With the tongs; mother, make my bed soon
For I'm poisoned to my heart, and I fain would lie down.
"Oh, what would you give to your mother, Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, what would you give to your mother, my fair pretty one?"
"My bed. and my bedding; mother, make my bed soon
For I'm poisoned to my heart, and I fain would lie down."
"Oh, what would you give to your father, Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, what would you give to your father, my fair pretty one?"
"My horse and my saddle; mother, make my bed soon
For I'm poisoned to my heart, and I fain would lie down."
"Oh, what would you give to your brother, Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, what would you give to your brother, my fair pretty one?"
"My dog and my gun; mother, make my bed soon
For I'm poisoned to my heart, and I fain would lie down."
"Oh, what would you give to your sister. Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, what would you give to your sister, my fair pretty one?"
"My gold and my silver; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm poisoned to my heart, and I fain would tie down."
"Oh, what would you give to your Polly, Jimmie Nelson, my son?
Oh, what would you give to your Polly, my fair pretty one?"
"Hell-fire and brimstone; mother, make my bed soon
For I'm poisoned to my heart, and I fain would tie down."