Pretty Crowing Chickens- Presnell (NC) 1951 Warner
[From Traditional American Folk Songs, Warners and also from Folksongs II, Burton and Manning.
Inexplicably the Warners titled this Pretty Crowin' Chickens (plural)-- although there is only one chicken. This "family" version was also part of Frank Proffitt's repertoire (Frank married Nathan Hicks' daughter, Bessie). I've changed Presnell's text in the last stanza after hearing Proffitt sing this ballad.
Although her source is not specifically from the Hick/Harmon family- it likely was picked up from a family member by Yonce, a Beech Mountain wanderer. This version uses the "Lord Lovel form."
R. Matteson 2013, 2016]
HATTIE PRESNELL- bio from Burton and Manning
Hattie Kneevista Hicks Presnell was born June 19, 1907, to Buna and Roby Monroe Hicks. She moved with her family to the watauga River and returned with them to spice creek. There she went to Rominger school and got to the third primer before she stopped attending in order to bear more responsibilities at home because of illness in the family. Hattie remained at home until she was nineteen years old at which time she married Dewey Presnell. She has traveled to Arkansas, Canada, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Many of the songs she knows come from Van Buren County, Arkansas, where her husband for eleven years of his childhood would often hear "song after song all night long" sung by Mrs. Ida McIntyre. Hattie's songs were also learned from her father-in-law and great-uncle, Lee Monroe Presnell, and through him from Lie-hew (John Calvin Yonce came to Beech Mountain every seven years and was named Lie-hew by the folks on the mountain because he "lied so much and hewed on a stick all the time", it was rather difficult to learn his songs, Hattie says, because if he thought that the motive behind a request was to learn a song he would refuse to sing). Hattie is also indebted for songs to her mother, with whom she has remained closely associated over the years.
PRETTY CROWIN' CHICKENS- Hattie Hicks Presnell, 1951; Anne Warner, Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne & Frank Warner Collection (Syracuse UP, 1984, pp. 225-226; with music) Learned from Lie-hew (AKA John Calvin Yonce, who came to Beech Mountain every seven years).
The moon it shines bright, and the stars they give light,
While this fair miss she worries [1] alone.
There's something in the way that is causing him to stay,
It's I am worried alone, 'lone, 'lone,
It's I am worried alone.
Her true love come at last, and he come very fast,
Come tripplin' through the plain.
This fair miss she rose, and she threw on her clothes,
For to let her old true lover in, in, in,
For to let her old true lover in.
"My pretty little chicken, my pretty crowin' chicken,
Say, don't you crow before day.
I'll make your wings of a yeller beading gold,
And your comb of the silver so gay, gay, gay,
And your comb of the silver so gay."
This chicken proved false-hearted to her,
And crowed one hour too soon.
She sent her love away, before it was day,
And he traveled by the light of the moon, moon, moon,
And he traveled by the light of the moon.
She saddled up her milk white horse,
And also her dapple grey.
She rode through the dark wilderness,
At the length of a long summer day, day, day,
At the length of a long summer day.
"My old true love, my sweet turtledove,
Oh, when shall I see you again?"
"When the moon and the stars enters in yonders stream [2],
And the sky shall shed no more rain, rain, rain,
And the sky shall shed no more rain."
1. Pronounced: warries
2. originally: green. Proffitt sings "yonders stream."