O Your First Little Child- Moran (Leitrim) 1954
[This version has not been recognized yet as a traditional version of The Maid and The Palmer. Brian Peters pointed this out in the Digital Tradition Forum and I agree that it is a version. I've titled the ballad from the first line. See my article below.
R. Matteson 2012]
O Your First Little Child- Thomas Moran; Mohill, Co. Leitrim. December 1954.
O your first little child with the golden locks
All along and a-lonely-O
And you've buried him under your own bed stock
Down by the greenwood sidey-O
You've buried three more on your way going home
And you've buried three more on that butting stone
Well you'll be seven long years a wolf in the woods
And you'll be seven long years a fish in the floods
You'll be seven long years a-ringing the bell
And you'll be seven long years a-burning in hell
Well I'd like very well to be a wolf in the woods
And I'd like very well to be a fish in the floods
I'd like very well to be a-ringing the bell
But the Lord may save my soul from hell
____________________
The Missing Traditional Version of Child 21: The Maid and the Palmer
by Richard L. Matteson Jr. 2012
As pointed out by Brian Peters in the Digital Tradition Forum, Thomas Moran's version titled "The Cruel Mother" may in fact be a rare traditional version of Child 21: The Maid and the Palmer.
Thomas Moran, a farmer from Mohill, Co. Leitrim recorded a ballad for Seamus Ennis in 1954 that was titled 'The Cruel Mother' on 'The Folksongs of Britain, Vol. 4' (Child Ballads #1). In December, 1954 Ennis recorded Moran's version of Elfin Knight that was published in the 1955 Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society-- establishing the date as late 1954 when Ennis made his recordings of Moran. Folktracks cassette/CD FTX-076 'The Bonny Bunch of Roses' has some 32 songs of Moran's recorded by Seamus Ennis for the BBC in 1954- including:
Cruel Mother (3): 22035;
Marie Slocombe, in her article BBC Folk Music Collection states:
Another extremely large and interesting repertoire was tapped when Seamus Ennis visited Thomas Moran, a 79-year-old farmer of Mohill, Co. Leitrim, who produced a version of almost any song the collector could mention.
In writing of this singer in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (1955), where several of his songs are published, transcribed from the BBC recordings, Seamus Ennis said: "Certain repertoires of folk song in Ireland are greater than Thomas Moran's repertoires, which include both Gaelic and English, and both Anglo-Irish ballads and purely Irish songs, but Moran is the one in all my experience who has excelled in preserving the ballads of England, and particularly those of older vintage."
Moran's "Cruel Mother" is also included in Folk Songs of Britain, Vol 4. The Child Ballads, I, Caedmon TC 1145, LP (1961), trk #A.08. A brief biography of him follows:
Thomas Moran: Singer and storyteller. Mohill, Co. Leitrim. December 1954. Aged 79.
Lived in a Townland called Drumrahool, near Mohill, Co., Leitrim. Had been a farmer all his life. The collector suspected he might have travelled: "No", he said, "I learnt that song from a neighbour who hardly ever crossed a cow-track in his life". "Were you ever in Scotland or in England?" "I was once in England, on a couple of week's foolishness". The singer also made the remark: "The songs came in by these by-roads, and the condition of the roads would not let them out again".
Let's look now at the text of Moran's "Cruel Mother." The reason it was categorized the Cruel Mother is the refrain. Let's look at Moran's first verse:
O your first little child with the golden locks
All along and a-lonely-O
And you've buried him under your own bed stock
Down by the greenwood sidey-O.
Although the refrain is the standard one for the Cruel Mother, the verses are not. It's common to use the refrain of one song for another, especially similar songs like Child 20 and Child 21. Important to note is the "butting stone" in Moran's second stanza which is the "stepping stone" in Child 21 Maid and the Palmer. Let's look now at Moran's text:
Cruel Mother- Thomas Moran; Mohill, Co. Leitrim. December 1954.
O your first little child with the golden locks
All along and a-lonely-O
And you've buried him under your own bed stock
Down by the greenwood sidey-O
You've buried three more on your way going home
And you've buried three more on that butting stone
Well you'll be seven long years a wolf in the woods
And you'll be seven long years a fish in the floods
You'll be seven long years a-ringing the bell
And you'll be seven long years a-burning in hell
Well I'd like very well to be a wolf in the woods
And I'd like very well to be a fish in the floods
I'd like very well to be a-ringing the bell
But the Lord may save my soul from hell
According to Peters, "Leaving aside the standard Child 20 chorus, this looks much more like 'The Well Below the Valley' [Maid and the Palmer] to me."
The first penance for the murder given by Moran is, "Well you'll be seven long years a wolf in the woods." The penances especially the "seven years" are from The Maid and the Palmer, which is thought to be the older ballad. Some of the penances have showed up in Child 20 the Cruel Mother.
Brian Peters then writes, "What intrigued me weren't just the penances, but the number and fate of the children. 'Cruel Mother' never seems to describe more than three. However...
Child 21A (Percy MS) describes nine children, hidden thus:
Three were buried under thy bed's head
Other three under thy brewing leade (sic)
Other three on yon play greene...
WBTV has six children killed:
There's two buried 'neath the stable door
Another two near the kitchen door
Another two buried beneath the wall
The Moran 'Cruel Mother' has seven:
And you've buried him under your own bed stock
You've buried three more on your way going home
And you've buried three more on that butting stone
The theme of multiple burial places seems (on the admittedly thin evidence available) to be characteristic of 'Maid & Palmer', and note that the first specified is beneath her bed head in both Percy's and Thomas Moran's versions.
None of which amounts to very much for anyone outside the ranks of ballad obsessives, except that Child 21 is very rare in oral tradition - and yet it seems that there's been another version under everyone's noses the whole time. Nothing, apart from the refrain (and ballad refrains are even more fluid than verses about penances!), identifies the Moran ballad as Child 20.
In the notes to the Folktrax record Seamus Ennis is quoted as saying:-
"Thomas Moran's songs came to Leitrim in Cromwellian times - the Plantation period" which perhaps suggests a Scottish ancestry for his songs.
'The Cruel Mother' only had one lover in all the versions I've seen, and generally the songs credit her with giving birth to two pretty babes at one birth, or occasionally only one or more rarely, three. Whereas the "maid" in Child 21 has clearly had multiple lovers and as many children - as much as fifty or seventy in some Central European variants. There is probably some significance in the different ways the children are buried which could be worth looking at again.
Regarding the penances, I was interested enough to check the parallels.
Scots texts Child 20 have:
Seven years as Bird (or fowl) in a Tree (wood)
Seven years a fish in the sea (flood)
Seven years to ring a (church) bell
Seven years as a porter in hell
Maid & Palmer has 7 year penances:
Stepping stone/ clapper in bell / lead an ape in hell
Reilly WBTV has:
Ringing the bell / porting in hell
Moran has:
Wolf in the woods / fish in the flood
Ringing the bell / burning in hell
North American versions in Bronson commonly end with the threat or actuality of hellfire, but several have other penances as well.
Ben Henneberry, Nova Scotia (coll. Creighton) had:
Beast in the woods / fish in the sea / toll the bell
Ellen Bigney, Nova Scotia had:
Ring a bell / owl in the woods / whale in the sea
R. W. Duncan, Nova Scotia had:
Roll a stone / toll a bell
Theresa Corbett, Newfoundland had:
Roll a stone / stand alone / ring a bell / spend in hell
Peter Cole, Pennsylvania had:
Wash and wring / card and spin / ring them bells / serve in hell
After looking at the information supplied by Peters, I agree with him that Thomas Moran's Cruel Mother should be considered a traditional version of Child 21- The Maid and the Palmer.
R. Matteson 2012