Polly and Sweet William- McKinney (WV) 1919 Cox B
[From: Folk-Songs Of The South by John H. Cox, 1925. His detailed notes follow. Cox's assessment the "three West Virginia texts represent 'Polly's Love, or, The Cruel Ship Carpenter,' an English song in eleven stanzas" is incorrect. West Virginia A and B are similar to he standard text taken from the Fleet/Roxburghe" broadsides from the 1700s. Part of the standard text is also found in "Polly's Love" - however, none of the identifying text from Polly's Love" is present. The last half of the last stanza is added from another song.
R. Matteson 2016]
89. COME, PRETTY POLLY
The three West Virginia texts represent "Polly's Love, or, The Cruel Ship Carpenter," an English song in eleven stanzas, which is a condensation of "The Gosport Tragedy; or, The Perjured Ship Carpenter," a long broadside ballad that goes back at least to the middle of the eighteenth century (Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, viii, 143, 173). Polly's lover is a ship carpenter. After the
murder he goes to sea, but the ship "cannot sail on," because he is on board. The captain suspects that there is a murderer among the crew. William, like the rest, protests innocence, but he is torn to pieces by Polly's ghost. In "The Gosport Tragedy" the ghost appears before the ship sails, and the captain is afraid to leave port with a murderer as shipmate; the ghost causes the guilty man to die raving distracted.
For references see Kittredge, Journal, xx, 261. Add Ashton, Real Sailor-Songs, 86, and A Century of Ballads, p. 101 ; Sharp,
Folk-Songs from Somerset, rv, 8; broadsides by Catnach, Such (No. 142), Dalton (York, No. 17), Gilbert (Newcastle, No. 59), Cadman (Manchester, No. 213), Bebbington (Manchester, No. 343). A comic version of "Polly's Love" called "Molly the Betrayed, or The Fog-bound Vessel" was popular on the English stage about the middle of the last century (broadsides by Bebbington, Manchester, No. 477; W. S. Fortey; Sam CowelVs Budget from Yankee Land, p. [12]; cf. Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, viii, 143).
For American texts from oral tradition see Journal, xx, 262 (Kentucky); Campbell and Sharp, No. 39 (Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee); Mackenzie 55 (NovaScotia: " The Gaspard Tragedy "). " The Gosport Tragedy " was printed in this country as a chapbook (at Philadelphia?) in 181 6, and again (at Philadelphia) in 1829 (Harvard College Library, 25276, 43, 81). It
occurs also in The New American Song Book (Philadelphia, 181 7), p. 69, in The Forget Me Not Songster (New York, Nans & Cornish), p. 232, and elsewhere. There is an American broadside of about 1820, "The Ship Carpenter, or, The Gosport Tragedy" (Harvard College Library).
B. "Polly and Sweet William." Contributed by Miss Polly F. McKinney, Sophia, Raleigh County, 1919.
1 "O Polly, O Polly, O Polly," said he,
"You had better consent and be married to me."
"O William, O William, O William," said she,
"I am too young to be married to thee."
2 He took her by the hand and away he did go,
He led her over the mountains and the valleys so low;
He led her a little farther and she began to cry;
The grave was ready dug, and the spade a-standing by.
3 She threw her arms around him, saying, "I am in no fear.
How could you kill a poor girl who loves you so dear?"
He pulled out her breast, just as white as any snow,
He pulled out his knife and the blood began to flow.
4 Now down in the grave this poor lady did go,
Left nothing but a small bird to tell poor Polly's woe;
"I once loved as pretty a woman as ever the sun shone on;
I once enjoyed her beauty, but now my fair one's gone."