Music of the Older Ballads- Mostly British

THE OLDER BALLADS— MOSTLY BRITISH

[On the left hand column the individual songs/ballads are attached to this page. Click to open.]

AS MIGHT be expected from the liistory of the state, North Carolina is rich in the older traditional ballads. The Frank  C. Brown Collection shows as many of the ballads admitted by  Child to his English and Scottish Popular Ballads as the Virginia  Folklore Society found in that state (as reported in Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia) and more than any other state collection  except that of Maine (as reported by Barry in British Ballads from  Maine). And among them are not only what might be called the  standard favorites, ballads that appear in almost all American  regional collections — 'Barbara Allan,' 'Lord Thomas and Fair  Annet,' 'Sir Hugh or The Jew's Daughter,' 'The Farmer's Curst  Wife,' 'The Golden Vanity' — but others that have seldom or never  been recovered before on this side of the water. One of them, indeed, 'Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne,' a broken and decayed  but none the less indisputable form of the original, has not been  found anywhere in tradition since someone wrote it down in the  famous Percy Folio three hundred years ago. 'The Wee Wee  Man,' too, is unique in modern tradition. 'Thomas Rymer' has  not heretofore been found in America. Others — 'Babylon,' 'Child  Waters,' 'The Lass of Roch Royal' (as a complete ballad; certain  stanzas of it are ubiquitous in American folk lyric), 'Sweet William's Ghost,' 'The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter,' 'Robin  Hood Rescuing Three Squires,' 'The Bonny Earl of Murray,' 'The  Suffolk Miracle' — are unusual in American, some of them also in  British, tradition. And there are some very interesting old songs  outside the Child canon : 'The Ghost's Bride,' 'The Turkish Factor,'  'The Prince of Morocco,' 'Nancy of Yarmouth,' 'The Bramble  Briar,' and relics of the old carols — 'The Dilly Song,' 'The Twelve  Joys of Mary,' 'The Twelve Days of Christmas.'

It is not surprising that North Carolina has kept these old songs  as a live tradition. We sometimes forget that the earliest English  settlement in America was made in North Carolina, on Roanoke  Island, some twenty years before the permanent planting at Jamestown. And when, not long after, permanent settlements were made  in North Carolina, they consisted, for the most part, of simple folk.  So much so as to arouse in William Byrd of Westover, cultivated  Virginia gentleman (and shrewd-eyed appraiser of land values), a  hundred years later, an amused contempt for the people south of the  Dividing Line — parsonless, largely lawyer-less, and lazy, a Lubberland folk. Of Edenton. on Albemarle Sound, a town in 1728 of  some forty or fifty small and inexpensive houses, he opined that  it was "the only metropolis in the Christian or Mahometan world  where there is neither church, chapel, mosque, synagogue, or any  other place of public worship of any sect or religion whatsoever";  but he added that "not a soul has the least taint of hypocrisy or  superstition, acting very frankly and above-board in all their excesses."

Plain people, evidently; the sort of people that would  naturally retain the old ballads as the poetic expression of their  life and feelings. And when, later in Byrd's century, the wave of  Scotch and Scotch-Irish came across the water to the New World,  they brought their old songs with them. In North Carolina, as in  the adjoining colonies north and south, the newcomers found the  richer lands along the coast already taken up and went inland, towards the mountains, establishing themselves there on the frontier  and again, a generation or two later, proceeding over the mountains  to occupy a new frontier in Kentucky and Tennessee. Their  descendants are still there, in the mountain counties, living much  as their forefathers did when they first came and singing many  of the same songs. Mrs. Sutton's notes on the ballads she collected in Caldwell and neighboring counties provide many delightful pictures of these people, some of which will be found in the headnotes  to the ballads. They still make ballads of their own, too. Thomas  Smith of Zionville tells of a ballad singer of Watauga county,  John Yarber, who was famous for his renditions of 'Barbara Allan'  and 'The House Carpenter' ('James Harris'):

"People of our settlement used to call on Mr. Yarber to sing whenever he visited  them. . . . Mr. Yarber (we always called him 'Uncle Johnny')  was not an educated man, but took great delight in music. He  even composed songs on local happenings, etc., and sang them to  his friends who wished to hear them."

CONTENTS

 

I. THE OLDER BALLADS— MOSTLY BRITISH
[There are many alternative titles for these ballads; I'm including some in blue after the title]

1. The Elfin Knight 12 [Cambric Shirt; Are You Going To Scarborough Fair?]

2. Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight 15 [King's Daughter; Sweet William]

3. Earl Brand 27 [Douglas Tragedy; As I Rode Up To the Old Man's Gate] 

4. The Two Sisters 32 [Old Man from the North Countree; Miller's Two Daughters]

5. The Cruel Brother 35 [O, Lily O]

6. Lord Randal 39

7. Edward 41

8. Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks Fordie 44

9. The Three Ravens 46

10. Thomas Rymer 46

11. The Wee, Wee Man 47

12. Captain Wedderburn's Courtship 48

13. The Two Brothers 49

14. Young Beichan 50

15. The Cherry Tree Carol 61

16. Sir Patrick Spens 63

17. Child Waters 65

18. Young Hunting 67

19. Lord Thomas and Fair Annet 69

20. Fair Margaret and Sweet William 79

21. Lord Lovel 84

22. The Lass of Rock Royal 88

23. Sweet William's Ghost 92

24. The Unquiet Grave 94

25. The Wife of Usher's Well 95

26. Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard 101

27. Bonny Barbara Allan 111

28. Lady Alice 131

29. Lamkin 140

30. The Maid Freed from the Gallows 143

31. The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter 149

32. Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne 151

33. Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires 152

34. Sir Hugh; or, The Jew's Daughter 155

35. Queen Eleanor's Confession 160

36. The Bonny Earl of Murray 160

37. The Gypsy Laddie 161

38. Geordie 168

39. Katharine Jaffray 169

40. James Harris (The Daemon Lover) 171

41. The Suffolk Miracle 180

42. Our Goodman 181

43. Get up and Bar the Door 183

44. The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin 185

45. The Farmer's Curst Wife 188

46. The Crafty Farmer 188

47. The Sweet Trinity (The Golden Vanity) 191

48. The Mermaid 195

49. Trooper and Maid 198

50. The Dilly Song 199

51. The Twelve Blessings of Mary 206

52. The Twelve Days of Christmas 208

53. I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In 210

54. Dives and Lazarus (I) 210

55. Dives and Lazarus (II) 211

56. The Romish Lady 212

57. 'Let's Go A-Hunting,' Says Richard to Robert 215

58. The Ghost's Bride 216

59. The Dark Knight 218

60. The Turkish Factor 220

61. Nancy of Yarmouth 223

62. The Bramble Brier 229

63. The Prince of Morocco; or, Johnnie 232

64. The Gosport Tragedy 234 [Pretty Polly; Cruel Ship's Carpenter]

65. The Lexington Murder 240 [Knoxville Girl]

66. On the Banks of the Ohio 247 [Banks of the Ohio; I'll Never be Yours]

67. Rose Connally 248 [Down in a Willow Garden]

68. Handsome Harry 250

69. Beautiful Susan 251

70. The Lancaster Maid 253

71. The Drowsy Sleeper 255 [Awake, Awake; In Old Virginny; Silver Dagger]

72. The Silver Dagger 258  [Awake, Awake; Oh Molly Dear; Drowsy Sleeper]

73. Come All Young People 259

74. Chowan River 261

75. Pretty Betsey 262

76. Molly Bawn 263

77. Fair Fannie Moore 264

78. Mary of the Wild Moor 265

79. Young Edwin in the Lowlands Low 266

80. The Three Butchers 269

81. The Butcher Boy 271

82. The Lover's Lament 279

83. As I Stepped Out Last Sunday Morning 283

84. Locks and Bolts 284

85. New River Shore 286

86. The Soldier's Wooing 287

87. Early, Early in the Spring 290

88. Charming Beauty Bright 293

89. The Glove 296

90. A Brave Irish Lady 299

91. Servant Man 302

92. A Pretty Fair Maid down in the Garden 304

93. John Reilley 305

94. Johnny German 306

95. The Dark-Eyed Sailor 310

96. Lovely Susan 311

97. Polly Oliver 312

98. Mollie and Willie 313

99. Jack Munro 314

100. The Girl Volunteer 317

101. Charming Nancy 319

102. A Rich Nobleman's Daughter 320

103. Little Plowing Boy 322

104. The Sailor Boy 323

105. Scarboro Sand (Robin Hood Side) 329

106. William Taylor 330

107. The Silk-Merchant's Daughter 331

108. Green Beds 334

109. Poor Jack 339

110. Little Mohea 340

111. The Faithful Sailor Boy 342

112. The Sailor's Bride 344

113. Barney McCoy 346

114. In a Cottage by the Sea 347

115. A Song About a Man-of-War 348

116. Captain Kidd 350

117. Poor Parker 351

118. High Barbary 352

119. The Lorena Bold Crew 353

120. The Sheffield Apprentice 353

121. The Rambling Boy 355

122. My Bonnie Black Bess 356

123. The Drummer Boy of Waterloo 357

124. Caroline of Edinburgh Town 358

125. Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch 360

126. I Wish My Love Was in a Ditch 361

127. Shule Aroon 362

128. William Riley 363

129. Johnny Doyle 365

130. Sweet William and Nancy 366

131. The Irish Girl 367

132. Pretty Susie, the Pride of Kildare 368

133. I Was Sitting on a Stile 369

134. I Left Ireland and Mother because We Were Poor 369

135. Three Leaves of Shamrock 370

136. Skew Ball 371

137. When You and I Were Young, Maggie 371

138. The Happy Stranger 372

139. Sweet Lily 373

140. Once I Had a Sweetheart 374

141. A False-Hearted Lover 375

142. Mama Sent Me to the Spring 375

143. Annie Lee 376

144. Hateful Mary Ann 377

145. The Girl I Left behind Me 378

146. The Isle of St. Helena 385

147. The Babes in the Wood 388

148. The Orphan Girl 388

149. The Blind Girl 392

150. Two Little Children 394

151. The Soldier's Poor Little Boy 396

152. The Orphan 397

153. Fond Affection 399

154. You Are False, but I'll Forgive You 408

155. We Have Met and We Have Parted 410

156. Broken Ties 415

157. They Were Standing by the Window 417

158. The Broken Heart 421

159. This Night We Part Forever 422

160. Parting Words 423

161. Bye and Bye You Will Forget Me 424

162. The One Forsaken 425

163. Don't Forget Me, Little Darling 426

164. She Was Happy till She Met You 427

165. The Ripest Apple 428

166. Sweetheart, Farewell 428

167. My Little Dear, So Fare You Well 429

168. Dreary Weather 431

169. My Sweetheart's Dying Words 432

170. The Homesick Boy 433

171. Over the Hills to the Poor-House 434

172. You're the Man That Stole My Wife 436

173. I'm Going to Get Married Next Sunday 436

174. Katie's Secret 437

175. The Farmer's Daughter 438

176. The Derby Ram 439

177. The Miller and His Three Sons 440

178. I Tuck Me Some Corn to the County Seat 444

179. The Old Dyer 444

180. Father Grumble 445

181. Johnny Sands 448

182. The Old Woman's Blind Husband 450

183. The Dumb Wife 452

184. The Holly Twig 454

185. Nobody Coming to Marry Me 456

186. Whistle, Daughter, Whistle 457

187. Hard of Hearing 458

188. The Three Rogues 458

189. Bryan O'Lynn 459

190. Three Jolly Welshmen 460

191. The Good Old Man 463

192. The Burglar Man 465

193. Billy Grimes the Drover 466

194. Grandma's Advice 467

195. Common Bill 469

196. Swapping Songs 471

197. Dog and Gun 474

198. Kitty Clyde 476

199. Father, Father, I Am Married 477

200. If I Had a Scolding Wife 478

201. The Scolding Wife 478

202. The Little Black Mustache 479

203. No Sign of a Marriage 481

204. Wilkins and His Dinah 482

205. Thimble Buried His Wife at Night 484

206. Boys. Keep Away from the Girls 485

207. The Boys Won't Do to Trust 486