Popular Ballads Recorded in Knoxville, TN 1938 by the Kirklands
[This has been Reprinted from Southern Folklore Quarterly, vol. II, no. 2., pages 65-80. Music and texts from Edwin Capers Kirkland and Mary Neal Kirkland, 1938.
R. Matteson 2014]
POPULAR BALLADS RECORDED IN KNOXVILLE, TENN.
by Edwin Capers Kirkland and
Mary Neal Kirkland
SINCE July 1, 1937, we have recorded on acetate or aluminum disks over 275 ballads and folksongs from east Tennessee and Western North Carolina. Several collectors have quoted rather mournfully the remark made by an old Highland woman to Sir Walter Scott as he was writing down the words of the songs:
"They were made for singing, and no for reading; but ye ha'e broken the charm now, an' they'll never be sung mair."' By preserving the old ballads on partially permanent disks, we do not break, but rather capture, the charm.
From our collection we have chosen the popular ballads recorded in Knoxville, Tennessee, because, although all of the variants are not significant, a few are, and because so much attention has been given to the mountains and isolated districts that we want to present what has been collected during two months in one of the cities.
THE TWA BROTHERS
(Child 49)
"The Dying Soldier," said by the singer to be a civil war song, was recorded July 25, L937, by Dr. Claudius M. Capps, a physician, who learned it many years ago from Miss Nanie McNew, of Carlisle, Kentucky. Dr. Capps said: "I don't think this is all the song, but it is all I remember."
This variant of five stanzas begins abruptly and leaves out the first part of the story given in most versions. "Highland shirt"
in the first and second stanzas obviously grew out of "holland shirt," found in several of the child versions, the change being made probably because some singer, ignorant of a holland shirt, thought "highland" more appropriate.
The Knoxville fragment is very close to Campbell and Sharp's A text from Hot springs, North Carolina, and the C text from Mount Fair, Virginia. Also a few lines are nearer those in the two variants from Mississippi given by Professor Hudson, than to any others.
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1. Arthur Palmer Hudson, Folksongs of Mississippi, p. 43.
2. English Folk songs from the southern Appalachians, No. 11.
3. Op. cit., No. 7.
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The Dying Soldier
[music]
Oh, Willie, take my highland shirt,
Tear it from gore to gore,
And wrop it around my bleeding wounds,
And I will bleed no more.
Willie took his highland shirt,
Tore it from gore to gore,
And wropt it around his bleeding wounds;
He still bled more and more.
Oh, Willie, take me on your back
And carry me to the church door,
And lay me down on the cold ground
And I will bleed no more.
Willie took him on his back
And carried him to the church door,
And laid him down on the cold ground
And he bled more and more.
Oh, Willie, go dig my grave,
Dig it both wide and deep,
And place my prayer book by my side,
A marble stone at my head and feet.
DIVES AND LAZARUS
(Child 56)
"The Rich Man and Lazarus" was recorded July 5, 1937, by Mr. J. C. Jarnigan, night watchman at the University of Tennessee, who learned it about twenty years ago from a man at Morristown, Tennessee.
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This ballad was discovered in America by Campbell and Sharp at Flag Pond, Tennessee, in 1916, and later collected by the Virginia Folklore society at Barber, Virginia, in 1924.[4] The Knoxville variant follows closely in outline and in language the other two American texts, but is nearer the text from Flag Pond. professor Davis's comment on the Virginia version is applicable to all three American texts: "The Virginia version differs entirely, except in bold outline of the Biblical story, from the Child versions. The difference of language is just about complete."[5] Since the publication of the first two American texts the term "secondary ballad," has been used to designate the retelling of a ballad by one who derived his ideas, but very little, if any, of his phraseology, from the earlier text. Although ballad authorities are not unanimous in approving the term "secondary," it serves as a convenient label for such texts as the following.
[music]
There was a man in ancient time,
Our Savior does inform us;
Pomp and grandeur was his crime:
He was very numerous.
He fared sumptous lie[8] each day,
Both purple and fine linen;
He eat and drink but scorned to pray;
He spent his life in sinning.
Poor begging Lazarus at his gate
To help himself unable;
Not one crumb would he give him
That fell from his rich table.
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4. Op. cit. No. 84
5. Aurthur Kyle Davis Jr., Traditional Ballads of Virginia, No. 14.
6. Ibid., p. 175
7. Phillips Barry, British Ballads from Maine, pp. 377ff.
8. Sumptuously
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The dogs took pity and licked his sores,
More ready to defend him.
At last death came; the poor man died
By angel band attended;
Straightway fled to Abraham's bosom
Where all his sorrow ended.
The rich man died and was buried too;
But oh his dreadful station;
With Heaven and Lazarus both in view
He landed in damnation.
SIR PATRICK SPENS[9]
(Child 58)
"Sir Patrick Spence" was recorded August 5, 1937, by Miss Clara J. McCauley, Supervisor of Public School Music in the city schools. She remembers hearing her father sing it in Orange County, North Carolina, and says that members of her family have been singing it for as long as she can remember. she does not know where her father learned it, but believes that the variant as she sings it has not been influenced in text or melody by printed versions.
This eleven-stanza variant, although shorter than most printed texts, tells a fairly complete story, and opens as usual with the king sitting in Dumferling town drinking his blood-red wine. The motive for Sir Patrick's journey, to bring back a lovely maiden from far Norway, is given; however, the air of impending tragedy usually stressed is passed over quickly and the story moves rapidly toward the catastrophe. The ending is unusual. Instead of the ladies who wait tragically for the Scottish lords who will never return, we have a picture of life going on in Dumferling town, as the king still sits, drinking his blood-red wine and asking, "Where can I get a good sailor to sail this ship of mine?"
The Knoxville variant is the second, to be found in America;[10] the first, discovered by Mr. John Powell at Norfolk, Virginia,[11] fol-
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9. For text and tune see Edwin Capers Kirkland, "Sir Patrick Spens Found in Tennessee," SFQ, I (December, 1937), 1-2. [This article is found below]
10. I have information which I hope will lead to other variants; but as yet I have been unable to collect them.
11. In the Lowlands Low," SFQ, I (March, 1937), pp. 1-12.
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-ows closely Child's H. The Knoxville text is also a variant of Child's H, but shows more variation from the child text than Mr.
Powell's variant. The tune is different from, and we think more pleasing than, that published by Mr. Powell or the one found in
Alexander Keith's Last Leaves of Traditional Ballad's and Ballad Airs'" The last part of the tune is the same as that published by professor Child," which he took from the Harris MS., "Ballads learned by Amelia Harris in her childhood from an old nurse in Perthshire the last years of the 18th century); taken down by her daughter, who has added a few of her own collecting with an appendix of airs. Harvard College Library."
LORD THOMAS AND FAIR ANNET
(Child 73)
"Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor," was recorded July, 1937, by Mrs. Mariana Schapp, of Columbus, Ohio, whose husband was a
member of the faculty of the University of Tennessee. she learned it from Miss Katherine Carr, of Bellefontaine, Ohio. This fragment of four stanzas is closer to the Virginia variants K, L, and O,[15] than to any of the other numerous texts.
[music]
I riddle, I riddle dear mother said she,
I riddle it all in one;
Whether I should go to Lord Thomas's wedding
O I should stay at home.
LORD LOVEL
(Child 75)
Miss Clara J. McCauley in July, 1937, recorded two melodies, but only the first stanza of this well known ballad, which shows so little variation, especially in the first stanza, that it is impossible to compare the Knoxville fragment with other variants.
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12. p. 47
13. English and, Scottish Popular Ballads, V, 415.
14. Sargent and Kittredge, ed., English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1904), p. 678.
15. Davis, No. 18
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A. "Lord Lovel" was recorded by Miss McCauley, who heard this tune sung by several women in southwest Virginia.
[music]
Lord Lovel stood at his castle wall,
Combing his milk-white steed,
When down came Lady Nancy Belle,
A- wishing her lover good speed
B. "Lord Lovel" was recorded by Miss McCauley, who learned this tune from her father in Orange County, North Carolina.
[music]
Lord Lovel stood at his castle wall,
Combing his milk-white steed,
When down came Lady Nancy Belle,
A- wishing her lover good speed
A-wishing her lover good speed.
BARBARA ALLEN
(child 84)
The texts of "Barbara Allen" recovered in Knoxville are not significant in themselves, but had no survivals been found of this most widely known popular ballad, that fact would have been remarkable. Two complete texts and two first-stanza fragments have been recorded. As most collectors have stated before, more texts could have been collected but at the expense of missing items less common.
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A. Thirteen stanzas of "Barbara Allen" were recorded July, 1937, by Mr. Sam Hatcher, a young man who said that he heard it first from his mother but that he has heard it so many times since that he never sings the words in the same way.
B. Sixteen stanzas of "Barbara Allen" were recorded August, 1937, by Mr. Jack Moore, a young man who learned it from various people around Townsend, Blount County, Tennessee.
C. One stanza of "Barbara Allen" was recorded July, 1937, by Miss McCauley, who learned it from her father in Orange County, North Carolina.
Barbara Allen
All in the merry month of May,
When the green buds were a-swelling,
Sweet William Grove on his death, bed lay,
For the love of Barb'ra Allen.
D. One stanza of "Barbara Allen" was recorded July, L937, by Mr. Ted Lewis, who did not remember where he learned it.
THE MAID FREED FROM THE GALLOWS
(Child 95)
"The Hangman's Tree" was recorded January, 1937, by Miss Mary Biggs, a teacher in the city schools, who learned it from her
mother, a native of east Tennessee. Miss Biggs said, "I do not remember the end of this, but we think the sweetheart saved the
man."
Hangman, hangman, hold your rope,
Oh fer a while.
I think I see my father coming,
For many a mile.
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ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN
(Child 125)
"Robin Hood and Little John" was recorded July, 1937, by Mrs. Mariana Schaupp, "who learned it from her father, Mr. Marion
Taylor Cummings, who had it from his mother, Frances Hayden Cummings, once of Kentucky. It has been in the family for at least eighty years."
Professor Child printed only one text, and did not include a variant from Virginia which is in his manuscript collection presently at the the Harvard. College Library.[16] A variant found at Normal, Illinois in 1908, was edited and published by Professor H. S. V. Jones.[17]
The Child printed text contains thirty-nine stanzas; the Illinois text twenty; and the Knoxville, sixteen. All give the essential parts of the story, and maintain in general the internal rime in the third line. The American variants leave out explanatory material, such as Robin Hood's instructions to his men that they are to tarry in the forest while he seeks adventure alone, but that they are to come to his assistance should he blow upon his horn. The American variants also leave off the description of the merrymaking as Little John is taken into the band, baptized, dressed in green, told of his future work, and his name changed from John Little to Little John.
[music]
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16. Reed Smith, "The Traditional Ballad in the South," JAFL, XXVII, p.
17. "Robin Hood and Little John," JAFL, XXIII (1910) , 432-34"
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When Robin Hood was about eighteen years old,
He chanced to meet Little John,
A jolly brisk blade, just fit for his trade,
For he was a sturdy young 1nan.
Although he was little, his limbs they were large;
His stature was seven feet high
Wherever he came, he soon quickened his name,
And he presently caused them to fly.
One day these two met on a long narrow bridge,
And neither of them would give way,
when Robin stepped up to the stranger and said,
"I'll show you brave Nottingham play."
"You speak like a coward,', the stranger he said,
"As there with your long bow you stand.
f vow and protest you may shoot at my breast
While I have but a staff in my hand."
"The name of a coward," said Robin, "I scorn,
And so my long bow I lay by.
And then for your sake a staff I will take,
The faith of your manhood to try."
Then Robin he stepped out into a grove,
And pulled up a staff of green oak,
And this being done straight back he did come
And thus to the stranger he spoke.
"Behold thou my staff; it is lusty and tough;
On this long narrow bridge let us play,
Then he who falls in, the other shall win
The battle, and then we'll away."
Then Robin hit the stranger a crack on the crown
Which caused the blood to appear,
And thus so enraged they more closely engaged
And they laid on the blows most severe.
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The stranger hit Robin a crack on his crown,
Which was a most terrible stroke.
The very next blow laid Robin below
And tumbled him into the brook.
"Oh where are you now?" the stranger, he cried.
With a hearty laugh in reply,
"Oh, faith in the flood," cried bold Robin Hood,
"And floating away with the tide."
Then Robin, he waded ail out of the deep
And pulled himself up by a thorn;
Then just at the last he blew a loud blast
So merrily on his bugle horn.
The hills they did echo, the valleys did ring,
Which caused his gay men to appear,
All dressed in green, most fair to be seen;
Straight up to the master they steer.
"What aileth thee, Master ?" quoth William Stutely.
"You seem to be wet to the skin."
"No matter," said he, "this fellow you see'
In fighting hath tumbled me in."
"\Me'11 pluck out his eyes, and duck him likewise."
Then seized they the stranger right there.
"Nay, let him go free," quoth bold Robin Hood,
"For he's a brave fellow. Forbear !
"Cheer up, jolly blade, and don't be afraid
Of these gay men that You see.
There are fourscore and nine, and if you will be mine
You may wear of my own livery."
A brace of fat doe was quickly brought in,
Good ale and strong liquor likewise;
The feast was so good ail in the greenwood
Where this jolly babe was baptized.
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JAMES HARRIS, OR THE DAEMON LOVER
(Child 243)
A. "The House Carpenter" a nine-stanza variant, was recorded. July 25, 1937, by Dr. Claudius M. Capps, a physician, who said that he probably learned this ballad from his mother. Since this text is the one usually found, it is difficult to determine its relation to other American survivals; however, we feel that it is most like the Virginia I and J."
[music]
I have married a king's daughter,
Most rich in gold and lands;
You have married a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a fine young man.
B. "The Rocky Mountain Top" was recorded July, 1937, by Mr. Raymond Stanley, who learned it from his father-in-law, Mr. Frank Burnett, of Middlesboro, Kentucky. "James Harris," like "The Lass of Roch Royal," is often mixed with other ballads and songs. Such a mixture is found here. The last two stanzas belong unmistakably to "James Harris," but the first four to a story of a mountain boy and girl and their disappointed love. Campbell and Sharp at Carmen, North Carolina, collected only one stanza of "The Rocky Mountain Top,"[19] and that is practically the same as the second stanza here.
Rocky Mountain Top
[music]
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18. Davis, No. 40.
19. Op. cit., No. 59.
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As I rode out so early one morn,
To hear little birds sing sweet.
Oh, I laid my head in a college[20] door,
To hear the true lovers weep.
"Don't you remember the rocky mountain tops so high,
With your hand upon my brow ?
You promised you'd marry me
And make rue a lawful bride."
"Yes, I remember the rocky mountain tops so high
With my hand upon your brow.
I promised to marry you,
And make you a lawful bride."
"Hush up, oh it's my fair little miss;
Don't tell no stories on me;
I'll buy you a plate of yellow plated gold
And hang it on a willow weeping tree."
"Would you forsaken your house carpenter,
Would you forsaken your land,
Would you forsaken your three little babes
And go with another man?"
"Oh it's I'll forsaken my house carpenter;
Oh it's I'll forsaken my land;
Ch it's I'll forsaken my three little babes
And go with another man."
OUR GOODMAN
(child 274)
,,Three Nights' Experience" was recorded July, 1937, by Mr. Buck Fulton and Mr. Sam Hatcher. Fulton sang the words spoken by the husband and said that he learned the song from his mother. Hatcher in a high-pitched voice sang the part of the wife, and the two of them made the most of the dramatic element so apparent in this and other popular ballads. Dorothy Scarborough in her Song
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20. Certainly for cottage, but even after we asked whether it should be cottage, the singer insisted on college.
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Catcher in Southern Mountains" has two texts with the title, "Three Nights of Experience." At Lawsonville, North Carolina, we found in one of the homes a commercial phonograph record, 45092-B, made by the Okeh Record company, on which Earl Johnson and His Dixie Entertainers sang "Three Nights, Experience" to the same tune as that used by Fulton and Hatcher. Johnson also had the part of the wife sung in a high-pitched voice. All of the texts that have been mentioned have the same details, and practically the same words.
The existence of a commercial record may have something to do with the similarity, although the simplicity of the incremental repetition may be sufficient to account for it.
THE FARMER'S CURST WIFE
(Child 278)
A. A complete variant of "The Farmer's Curst Wife" was recorded November, 1936, by Mr. Oliver Hamby, who learned it at his home in Unaka, North Carolina. Speaking of the refrain in the second and fifth lines, he said, "I have never seen these lines in print and just wrote them as they sounded to me." He added, "Aside from my own singing I have not heard this song in over twelve years."
[Music]
There was an old man who owned as farm
Hi- did- did-dle-fie day.
he had no cattle to carry himm along,
Sing a-twas- fie, dum-fie, did-dle-fie day.
B. "Hi Lum Day" was recorded July, 1937, by Mrs. Mariana Schaupp, who learned it from her father, Mr. Marion Taylor Cummings of Beatrice, Nebraska.
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21. Pp. 232-35.
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The Farmer's Curst Wife
[music]
One day the old devil he came to my plow,
(Whistled refrain )
Saying, " 't is one of your children that I must have now,
To my hi-lum, hi-lum day.
"Your oldest daughter I do not crave,
But your old scolding wife, 'tis she I must have."
"Well," said the old man, "if the rest you will leave,
My old scolding wife, 'tis she you may have."
So he packed her off till he came to Hell,
And he pitched her in saying, "There you may dwell."
Came old Beelzebub, rattling his chains;
She picked up a poker and beat out his brains.
Came three little devils to raise her up higher;
She up with her foot and kicked nine in the fire.
Then the old she-devil looked over the wall,
Saying, "Take her 'way, Master Devil, or she'll kill us all."
So he picked her up all on his back,
Like an old johnny pedlar went packing her back.
She was seven years going and seven coming
And she called for the mush she had left in the oven.
"Well," said the old man, "What to do I can't tell,
For you aren't fit for heaven and you won't stay in hell."
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THE SWEET TRINITY, OR THE GOLDEN VANITY
(Child 286)
"The Merry Golden Tree" was recorded Jury 25, 1937, by Dr. Claudius M. Capps, who said that he probably learned it from his
mother over fifty years ago. This variant seems closer to professor Hudson's Mississippi A text[22] and Mr. Mellinger E. Henry's text from Cade's Cove, Tennessee,[23] than from other America, survivals.
There was a little ship that sailed on the sea,
And the name of the ship was the Merry Golden Tree
As she sail on the low lands, lonesome low.
As she sailed on the lonesome sea.
THE BROWN GIRL
(Child 295)
"The Rich Irish Lady" was recorded July 25, 1937, by Dr. Claudius M. Capps, who does not remember where he learned it. This
variant,like that of "Dives and. Lazarus," is one of the doubtful survivals of child ballads. variants similar to this one have been separated from the Child ballads,[24] classified as "secondary" Child ballads,[25] and before the term "secondary" came into use, accepted with reluctance as a survival of Child 295.[26]
Counting all variants and fragments, this collection of popular ballads from Knoxville includes nineteen texts for thirteen Child ballads. Looking at the history of the oral transmission, we see that four of these came from North carolina, three from Kentucky, and one each from Virginia, Ohio, and Nebraska. Looking at the similarities which seem to point to close relationship between these texts and those from other states, we find seven from Virginia. this number being due in part at ieast to the extensive work done by pro
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22. Op. cit. No. 25
23. "Ballads and Songs from the Southern Highlands, JAFL, XL. (1932), 26-28.
24. John Harrington Cox
25. Phillips Barry
26. Davis, No. 50; Hudson No. 27
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fessor Davis and the Virginia Folklore Society; three from North Carolina; two from Mississippi; and one each from West Virginia and Illinois.
At the present time forty Child ballads have been found in Tennessee; thirty-three of these have now been published;" seven and in the manuscript collection of Miss Geneva Anderson, Maryville, Tennessee."
The popular ballads presented in this article show that they are still living in Knoxville, and that one does not have to go to ri.c
mountainous, isolated, or illiterate districts to find them. Of course some of the popular ballads surviving in Knoxville can be traced to mountain communities, but not all of them-and not the most significant of them. From a teacher in the city schools we receive: "The Maid Freed from the Gallows"; from a physician, "James Harris, or the Daemon Lover"; from the wife of a faculty member at the University of Tennessee, "Robin Hood and Little John"; and from the Supervisor of Public School Music, "Sir Patrick Spens.''
The variants of "Sir Patrick Spens" and of "Robin Hood and Little John," both found only occasionally in America, have not, so far as we have been able to trace their oral transmission, touched the mountains. The mountain folk have contributed a wealth of material and will continue to do so; however, we must not overlook the cities, even those that have not drawn upon mountain communities for their citizens. If we do, we must speak only of mountain songs and drop the name folk songs.
University of Tennessee.
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27. Nos. 3,10,12,13,20,43,49,53,56,58,73, 74, 75, 76, 79, 81, 84, 85, 93,95, 125,164, 200, 243, 272, 274, 277, 278, 283, 286, 289, 295, 299.
28. Nos. 4, 7, 14, 26, 54, 68, 155.
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Southern Folklore Quarterly December, 1937:
SIR PATRICK SPENS FOUND IN TENNESSEE
by Edwin Capers Kirkland
THE first American version of "Sir patrick spens"[1] as reported recently by John Powell from Virginia.[2] On August 5, 1937, I
recorded on an acetate disk a version of "Sir Patrick Spens," sung by Miss Clara J. McCauley, Supervisor of Public School Music in the schools of Knoxville, Tennessee. She remembers hearing her father sing it at the country home near Chapel Hill, North Carolina and says that members of her family have been singing it for at reast thirty or forty years. Like Mr. George Tucker, who communicated the first American version, Miss McCauley quickly wrote out the tune after she had made a recording of the ballad.
In his article Mr. powell states that "the general public has made up its mind that all our traditional music must be 'mountain music'." [1] His protest, "I am a folk rnusician. Why must I be excluded because I was born far from mountain fastnesses, because f can read and write, because I have had a musical eclucation?" is supported by the fact that the second variant of "Sir patrick Spens," like the first, came from an educated and trained musician.
SIR PATRICK SPENCE
[music]
The king he sits in Dumferling town,
A-drinking his blood red wine,
"Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor
That ever sailed the brine."
The king still sits in Dumferling town,
And a-sipping his red, red wine,
"Now where can I get a good sailor
To man this ship o' mine ?"
Oh up then said a yellow haired lad
Just by the king's left knee,
"Sir Patrick Spence is the best skipper
That ever sailed the sea."
Oh up then spoke an old, old knight
Right nigh the king's right knee,
"Sir, you are the very, very best sailor
That ever sailed the sea."
The king he wrote a good letter
And a-sealed it with his hand;
And when Sir Patrick Spence got it
He was strolling on the sand.
Sir Patrick read the orders from the king
That made him laugh at first,
But as he read another sad line,
Sir Patrick feared the worst.
He took his ship to far Norway,
A-sailing o'er the sea,
To get a lovely maiden fair
And to fetch her back, said he.
They sailed and sailed for many a day
Upon the wild, wild sea,
But our good sailor Sir Patrick Spence
Was drowned in the deep.
So the king sits on in Dumferling town
A-drinking his blood red wine,
"Oh, where can I get a good sailor
To sail this ship of mine?"
[University of Tennessee.]
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1. 'John Powell, "In the Lowlands Low," Southern Folklore Quarterly, I (March, 1937), pp. 1-12.
2. Ibid., p. 1.
3. "Ibid., p. 2.